


Dash Away

by MarigoldVance



Series: Dash Away [1]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: (i'm not kidding - this burns slower than glacial erosion), (short chapters), Alternate Universe - Modern, Apologies, Durincest, Flashbacks, Guilty Fili, Humor, M/M, Mild Angst, Misunderstandings, Reconciliation, Sexual Content, Slowest Burn, Stepbrothers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:13:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 39,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28112199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarigoldVance/pseuds/MarigoldVance
Summary: Fíli returns home after receiving an unexpected message. There, he's confronted with a past he'd rather run from and a future he isn't sure he's ready to handle.OR: Santa is a nightmare scarecrow, Fíli's been an idiot for awhile, Grandad is a troll with good intentions and Thorin is a questionable older brother but he's a Good Uncle, damn it.❉ 🚧⚠️🔸under construction🔸⚠️🚧
Relationships: Fíli/Kíli (Tolkien)
Series: Dash Away [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2102382
Comments: 303
Kudos: 39
Collections: GatheringFiKi - 12 Days Of Christmas 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i saw half of the trailer for Dashing in December the minute i received [THIS PHOTOSET](https://gatheringfiki.tumblr.com/post/637682749816389632/12-days-of-christmas-2020-day-4-stories) and the plot blossomed like a venus fly trap. so, here we are. in the same fashion as [The Mummy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24480787/chapters/59088283), this is written in serial format, the chapters short and easy to digest. when i tried to write this behemoth in one go, i overwhelmed myself XD so, here we are.
> 
> enjoy, frens, and **Happy Christmas**! 

As guilty as he felt for abandoning ship the second the company landed its biggest, most lucrative account yet, Fíli couldn’t find it in himself to offer to stay behind and smooth out the details.

Not this time.

He exited the room with a plain expression, though if anyone chose to look closer, they’d see the stiffness of his shoulders beneath the well-tailored lines of his suit jacket. Nobody would, he knew, too concerned with their own posturing to manage more than a shallow glimpse at him. Besides his coworkers’ ignorance, Fíli had long since perfected a veneer of inscrutable calm and he used it now to his advantage.

He gestured goodbye to the others over his shoulder and quickened his pace, practically speed-walking by the receptionists’ desk while Lobelia was wherever she went when she wasn’t guarding her post like the polyester Cerberus she was. 

Fíli breezed through the glass doors on their pig-squeal hinges, down the short corridor with the generic grey carpeting, and ducked around the corner where the monstrosity of a recreation haunted the queue of elevators – a gruesome hunting scene with too many gutted, dead things, brightened marginally by a strand of sparkly garland scalloped across the top of the frame. The painting was on a list of things Fíli couldn’t wrap his head around about his boss, who had had it installed where it would be the first thing people saw when they visited Istar Media+.

It was a miracle they hadn’t been sued for emotional distress.

Fíli let a few seconds tick by, ensuring he was alone and wouldn’t be happened upon, before he haggard a sigh and withered to the floor, thumping his head back then letting the weight of it droop forward as all sense of composure seeped out of him.

It had been awhile since Fíli was affected by words on a screen and the ones he’d received during the meeting weren’t even the worst. Yet, somehow, they played Yahtzee with his mind, shaking it with the aggression of a toddler before tossing it against the wall.

His collar was too tight, the walls too close. The hallway on either side of him stretched and shrunk like a funhouse illusion. Fíli sopped his brow uselessly with the cuff of his shirt, desperate to collect himself as the anxiety that he’d managed to outrun for so long crested over him.

As much as he wished against it, Fíli had no choice but to resign himself to what he had to do.

“Bollocks.”


	2. Chapter 2

It had been several years – five, in fact – since Fíli had gone home. He hadn’t run away, contrary to what some believed. No, he’d simply been given an opportunity and had grabbed it by the horns with the gusto of someone who wanted to make something of themselves, by themselves, for themselves; without the pressure and expectation of generations of family values shoved down his throat in the guise of innocent remarks.

What had happened— _fuck_ , that had had nothing to do with it.

Fíli closed his eyes against the unwelcome yet familiar slideshow of moonlit pale flesh, wet from saliva and sweat; a vise around his bicep, tugging him back into a chest sculpted from hours a day of hard labor; a breathy voice in his ear, scratched against his nape, that was never hushed but it was then, drawn thin and thready from anger, confusion, begging him to reconsider, _Jesus Fíli, don’t run, why can’t you just_ —

—Stop. That’s enough.

Fíli pulled in as much air as his lungs could take then slowly released it through his nose, shredding through the echoes until all that was left was the dull ache of nostalgia and the fear of possibility. The woman sat across from him, her years etched into her Basset face, eyed him the way someone would if they’d witnessed something particularly distasteful.

Offering a weak smile in apology, Fíli returned his head to the window and his gaze to the scenery as it blurred by in white and brown streaks, mentally chastising himself for allowing his thoughts to wander like disobedient children.

Unfortunately, he’d already charged after them, ripped past the caution tape, and was standing in the middle of the crime scene, unable to stop himself from thinking: if he _had_ been running, he wouldn’t have made himself so easy to find, would he? He wouldn’t Skype his mother every weekend (or every second weekend, if work was demanding); he wouldn’t call his uncle Nori as regularly as he did. He wouldn’t email Ori and Gimli and Bofur almost as often as he had to assuage a client; and he certainly wouldn’t invite Bilbo to bring his nephew to stay with Fíli whenever they wished to visit the city.

He wouldn’t thumb out hundreds of texts a day to a brother who had been a best friend first …

Or maybe he would. Because he did. And he deleted every single one of them when the clammy sensation of insecurity crept over him as soon as he was about to hit Send.

Fíli blew out from his cheeks and pointedly ignored the woman across from him who stilled her knitting to undoubtedly fix him with a glare.

It didn’t matter anymore if Fíli had run away or not because, against his better judgement, he was on his way home, barreling back to Erebor on the 7:30 train in a seat that cost enough to pull a third world country out of debt.

He repressed the urge to groan and instead folded his arms across his middle in a mild reach for reassurance.

The woman resumed clicking her needles.


	3. Chapter 3

“ _Oh_! There he _is_!”

The delighted, singsong greeting immediately soothed Fíli as much as the firm embrace that accompanied it.

Although Dís was petite, fitted against him up to his collar, he felt small and completely enveloped, her presence as enormous as her love. Fíli slouched into her arms and let himself relish being held.

“Hey mum,” He mumbled, squishing his whole face into the massive scarf she wore.

The smell of her was the same as it had always been since she had entered his life when he was a boy – musky and coniferous and a little like barnwork. He tightened his hold on her and breathed her in shamelessly, feeling his reservations ebb away.

“You could’ve let us collect you from the station.” Dís chided playfully when they parted.

Fíli glanced at his boots, shrugged, “The cab was fine. I prefer it.”

“Doesn’t matter, you’re home! How long has it been, hm? Six years?”

He grabbed the telescopic handle of his suitcase, tipped it onto its wheels and followed Dís up the slight incline at the end of the drive and through the gate. He paused ahead for Dís to swing the gate closed behind them and latch it, moving again when she returned to his side.

“Five.” Fíli corrected. And then, dredged up from a place he’d assumed he’d since outgrown, by the incredulous look on Dís’ face, Fíli huffed, “It’s not _that_ bad! We talked last week!”

Dís jostled his satchel from him and dragged it onto her outside shoulder so she could link them at the elbows without obstacle, meanwhile telling him, “Three weeks ago.”

“What? No. What are you talking about? We talked last week about the—the,” Fíli flapped a hand, “Marmalade. And how Triscuit was next to be harnessed after Brandle—”

Dís stopped midstride to raise an eyebrow at him and said carefully, “Which she was. Three weeks ago.”

Fíli squinted at the sky as he gathered the last three weeks in his mind to examine them.

And she was right.

“Damn.” His brows pinched, upturned where they met above the robust bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry, mum. I guess … I guess things just got away from me.”

Dís scoffed and placed her free hand over his heart, the gesture abating the guilt that began to swell within it.

“As things do,” She said, “Don’t fret, we know how busy and important you are. A real city boy now.”

Fíli rolled his eyes and responded to her mockery in kind, “Oh yes, _so_ important.” He untangled them to loop his arm around her shoulders, rocking her into his side affectionately. “I am sorry, though. I’ll try not to let it happen again.”

He was dismissed with a pat on the chest and a tender smile.

They hiked the gentle bend around the fat plot of land they kept for a smattering of snow-dusted spruces, their footsteps crunching beneath them. When Fíli next glanced up, the farmhouse came into view, the sight of it prodding something open inside him. A soreness of sorts though not painful, lodged between his lungs.

The house itself was as he’d last seen it. Tall and wide, built from thick stone and capped with a red roof that sloped over the wrap-around porch, the posts of which were spun with simple fir garlands and pinned at middle-height with large tin bows painted scarlet. The balustrade was also decked in firs and spools of twinkle lights that, when lit, Fíli knew would be magical to behold.

A few changes had been made; the mangy wreath they’d hung for as long as Fíli could remember had been replaced with a fuller, healthier one, adorned in frosted berries and pinecones. A bench Fíli recognized from the barn had been moved to sit beneath the window to the left of the door, a quilt draped over it as though recently flung aside.

Altogether, the image was sweet and festive and could rival any centerfold in Ideal Homes. It evoked a sense of comfort that bloomed through Fíli like a spoonful of hot soup.

And then all that comfort drained right the hell out of him because no amount of quaintness could eclipse the horror Fíli’s eyes landed on.

“Dear God, what happened to him!?”

Propped to the right of the door was a rather frightening scarecrow-esque parody of Santa, its burlap head a mangled display that was the stuff of nightmares. Hay and dead leaves spilled from its belly from a split in its poorly constructed jacket and a pegleg poked out from the hem of its pants where a boot should have been to match the other foot.

“Gilly got to him. There must’ve been something in the leaves that smelt appetizing. He didn’t waste time disembowelling him, let me tell you.”

Fíli gaped. Then, taking him quite by surprise, a guffaw erupted from his chest and doubled him over. He was giddy and gasping and the laughter was contagious, catching Dís whose cheeks pinked with the force of it. Fíli’s sides ached, tears spiked his lashes, and it took turning away from the disfigured Santa for him to summon the will to calm down.

“It was your father’s idea.” Dís rasped, wiping the tears from her eyes.

The statement sobered Fíli instantly.

“How’s he, then?”

“Hm?” Dís seemed oddly perplexed by the question though recognition quickly dawned on her, “Oh, as well as can be expected. You’ll see for yourself once we get in.”

They climbed the front steps, Fíli sparing a second to readjust his grip to the up handle to hoist his suitcase onto the porch. A chorus of barks and yips rose from inside under the rhinoceros clamour of paws as soon as Fíli stepped down on the creaky end of the second stair.

“Are you ready?”

Dís’ hand was already on the doorknob, her body braced to move out of the way of the impending stampede. She didn’t wait for a response.

Fíli was barely able to shove his suitcase to safety before he was knocked backwards by the impact of two large battering rams. He sailed through the air and landed on his back on the slushy ground below, the dirty-cold-wet soaking through the seat of his jeans. The two battering rams were joined by two whizzy sausages on stout legs that zipped from Fíli’s prone form to the porch where Dís stood. They lapped the circuit a few times, howls high and short like a tribal victory cry, and then launched a spongy-dribbly assault of tongues on whatever exposed skin they could reach.

Fíli wheezed and pushed and struggled under the bodies of four overexcited dogs, the larger two doing their damnedest to keep him pinned where they could slobber their affection all over him.

“Mum!” Fíli pleaded, a pitch of humor in his voice. “Help!”

“This is what you get when you keep away for too long.” Dís smiled without sympathy. While she didn’t move to rescue Fíli, she did dig her phone out of her pocket, the sound of the shutter punctuating Fíli’s humiliation as she took a picture that she announced she would, “Put on the front of my next album!”

“ _Mum_!”

“Welcome home, pet.”


	4. Chapter 4

Apart from the lively reception he’d received outside – and the charge that followed when the dogs scrambled in behind Dís and Fíli – Fíli’s return was thankfully subdued.

Bofur and Nori were down the hill at the barn, clearing it out for the village dance that took place every year, on Christmas Eve. Unfortunately, there was too much to do for them to break from their labor to welcome Fíli as soon as he arrived though Dís assured him that they would be up later for tea.

Kíli wouldn’t be home until the next evening, Dís speculated.

A torment and a relief.

Fíli found his room easily, now a respectable cream and cleared of its former arrangement of posters and paraphernalia. He’d assumed it would hurt more, entering a space that he’d spent a lifetime making his own and seeing it bereft of any trace of him except for his shelf of trophies and ribbons, and a corkboard of memories that he couldn’t bring himself to look at.

In fact, he’d been certain that the whole experience would be harder than it was turning out to be, his years of self-imposed exile seeming less necessary the longer he spent in the house he’d grown up in, surrounded by familiar smells and the rich coziness of home.

Grandad had been asleep, sunk into his armchair downstairs, exactly where Fíli had left him five years ago, buried under various decorations that Dís had yet to hang in the living room. His father was apparently resting and wouldn’t wake for awhile, sequestered, for the time being, in what had been Thorin’s room before Thorin moved in with Bilbo.

There was a numbness and quiet devastation that accompanied the truth that Vóli Durin wasn’t the invulnerable Popeye Fíli had considered him to be since, well—since _birth_ , and Fíli was nervous, about having to see him as anything less than how Fíli remembered him, so he did what he could to delay the inevitable.

Unpacked and showered, he shuffled back downstairs, dressed in fresh jeans and a grey sweater that was worn soft but had maintained its shape. It had been expensive but when Fíli found something he liked he didn’t hesitate over the price.

The fuzzy socks were from Asda.

Merry and Pippin, the two hyper, black, white, and tan teckels, heralded his arrival to the kitchen with a series of sharp yips that got them threatened with a wooden spoon.

"No noise," Dís reprimanded.

The two pups dismissed her warning completely, trotted about and licked the floor where something tasty must have spilled, turning up to her with worried-wrinkled brows that would melt the stoniest of hearts. 

Dís stared back, not moved in the slightest, a mother with experience, "Not a chance, you little shits." 

Fíli chuckled and strode further into the kitchen. A sense of _rightness_ flowed over him as his gaze panned the room. Though Dís kept a tidy house, the kitchen had always been the one room that got away from her. It was crowded with pieces too big for the space, blankets and dog beds and crumbs on the floor, a couple of threadbare armchairs in one corner beside the patio doors with a small, two-story shelf between them bursting with food magazines. The buffet hutch was a hodgepodge of bills, receipts, opened mail, wandering fruit and tissue boxes, bottles of lotion and whatever else found its way into the room with no intention to leave it. 

Unstable piles of dishes teetered sideways in the apron sink, the dishwasher whirring through its cycles. Glass gallon jars were positioned within easy reach of the standing mixer that rudded on the counter, paddle spinning on its lowest speed, and pouches of seasonings were supported by anything that would keep them upright. The pervasive combination of smells, notes of rich, tangy, savory – meat, citrus, dense warm-sweet – hung thick in the air, an almost physical cloud that swaddled Fíli as much as Dís’ embrace had when she’d met him at the curb.

The kitchen was, to put it mildly, a catastrophe.

It was perfect.

“Good, you’re here. I thought you might’ve taken a nap.” Dís said, her back to him as she concentrated on whatever she was doing at the stove.

“Anything I can do?”

Dís motioned to the table. “I need six of them for the barn. Do as many as you can.” She turned slightly to stick him with a chaffy look, “You remember how, don’t you?”

Again, without permission, a huff escaped Fíli in response, “Of course I do.”

“Wonderful, then get to it!”

Fíli plopped down in one of the chairs closest to the wood burning stove squatted on the wall adjacent to the entrance. A hank of twine and a heap of dried oranges sat in front of him, invoking memories of the countless hours he’d spent assembling dried orange chains for Dís’ events.

Merry plonked his little wiener bum on one of Fíli’s feet under the table while Pippin fixed him with the dearest, most irresistible puppy-face, obviously begging for a seat in Fíli’s lap.

“Come along, Short Round,” Fíli patted his thigh.

A couple of false-starts to hype himself up, nails clicking the tile, and Pippin sprang into Fíli’s lap, licking Fíli’s sweater as thanks before dropping his bum and then his body in a bun and promptly slipping into a doze. Soon after they were settled, Dís delivered a mug of what Fíli instantly identified as dark hot chocolate, a tuft of tiny marshmallows on top. She deposited it a safe distance away from the edge of the table then swanned back to the stove to rescue the concoction in the pot as it started to bubble.

“It’s almost as if you’re trying to keep me here,” Fíli joked, warming his hands around the mug before he lifted it to his nose, sniffing in the scent of happy childhood winters.

“Is it working?”

The first sip was nirvana. The second indulgent and the third left behind white clumps in Fíli’s scruff that he tried to retrieve with the tip of his tongue. Dís gave him a knowing look when he moaned appreciatively, the taste melting the tension Fíli had carried in every molecule since he left Erebor behind to pursue a promise of self-fulfillment. A promise he was steadily coming to realize was as empty as the flat he rented.

“Might be, yeah.”

Nicely heated from the inside out and tasked with a project, Fíli relaxed.


	5. Chapter 5

Around noon, Dís laded a tray with lunch for Fíli’s father: soup, saltines, orange juice and a couple of jammies for dessert. She seemed nervous, narrating her actions and overexplaining why she arranged the tray the way she did, telling Fíli in detail where to set it down after he entered the room, reminding him why he had to be quiet and careful and, _he is sick, after all, like I told you_.

Her shoulders were tight and her brown eyes round, lines high on her forehead. Her dark hair somehow appeared more mussed now than it had twenty minutes before, when she started putting together the tray, strands escaping the loose-braided pile she kept twisted atop her head. 

Dís didn’t do nervous unless for two reasons, that Fíli could recall. One: She did something terribly wrong and didn’t know how to apologize, and Two: She wanted to protect him but wasn’t sure if her Momma Bear fussing would be mistaken as intrusive or controlling.

The last time Fíli saw her this twisted up, ready to pop like a cork, had been in the days proceeding his mother’s accident. Dís had so badly wanted to take Fíli’s pain, to shield him from it forever, that she’d stood in the way of him seeing his mother for the last time. He couldn’t say he didn’t appreciate it, though, then, so many years after the fact.

The accident had left his mother disfigured, so brutally damaged, she hardly lasted two days after the grocery list of surgeries she undergone. Fíli had seen how haunted it had left his father to witness his wife, pulpy and bionic, breathing by machine, tubes and blood bags and—

No, Fíli was grateful for Dís’ Momma Bear fussing and wouldn’t take it for granted though he did wish that she wasn’t so obvious in her worry. Mostly because Fíli was then convinced that what awaited him behind the door of Thorin’s old room could only be the reflection of some Lovecraftian horror.

Christ, he prayed that his father hadn’t disintegrated into some Banshee Chapter wraith.

Pushing that nightmare aside, Fíli balanced the tray in one hand to lay the other on Dís shoulder, hoping to ease some of the toll her husband’s health was clearly taking on her. She gave him a hesitant twitch of the corners of her mouth in return.

“Is it really that bad?” He had to ask.

Dís’ eyes shot up from where they’d been drilling into the pinewood and hooked Fíli’s gaze. Staring, unyielding and hard, she said, “You have nothing to worry about, pet.”

If it weren’t for the fact that he’d been summoned home by a message that contradicted it, Fíli would believe the shit out of her statement. As it was, all he could do was offer a reassuring smile and promise, “I won’t disturb him if he’s sleeping, alright?”

That didn’t seem to calm Dís who continued to wring her hands and chew her lip. She relieved a tickle in her throat, gave a curt nod and returned to the kitchen.

Every step felt like a nail being hammered into his soul as Fíli ascended, dread spiking through him and making his footfalls heavier when they landed.

He didn’t _want_ his father to be a shallow, gummy-eyed husk, his body crippled by the ambiguous sickness that had rendered him invalid. Fíli didn’t _want_ his father wheezing a lineup of dad jokes at him in a hollow facsimile of how Vóli normally engaged with those around him. He especially didn’t want to face the possibility that he might have to say goodbye before he was ready.

He didn’t _want_ those things. But, considering Dís’ behavior downstairs, coupled with all the time he’d had to imagine the worst-case scenarios without intervention or argument, to say Fíli wasn’t expecting all that and more would be a lie. 

Inhaling a deep, steadying breath, holding it for a few seconds before exhaling, Fíli reached for the doorknob and slowly turned it. The door opened easily with a very thin, grinding creak from the bottom hinge. He stepped through, tray balanced in one arm, door at his back, and spun into the room on his left foot. The room was daytime dark, the curtains drawn but not doing much to keep the light out. Fíli marched quickly and keenly to the waist-high chest of drawers against the wall parallel to the bed, finding room between the collections of Wedgewood and Sevres. His eyes stayed on the tray until it was set, avoiding the desilvered-streaked reflection in the mirror.

Fíli worked up his nerve, one sharp breath, two, three, fists curled, blunt fingernails massaging a wave into his palms.

 _Like a band-aid_ , his brain encouraged. Fíli turned on his heel to finally look at his father.

And all the adrenaline and anxiety melted from his bones like fall-off-the-bone ribs, slopped onto the floor with an auralized dead-fish smack.

What Fíli saw … what Fíli saw was none of what he’d imagined. Not the opposite but different. Vóli was splayed across the bed, occupying the whole space with his bulk. He'd clearly lost weight, his face slightly more gaunt, though not as much as Fíli had feared, the rest of him filling out his pajamas like a Goliath. Vóli was notably grey beneath the flush across his cheeks and nose, a sheen of sweat glistening on his forehead; his ginger hedgerow brows bushed over his closed eyes, and his hair was matted and messy. 

Now, Fíli was no expert, he’d never seen someone who was claimed to be on the brink of death, so he couldn’t say with any certainty that his father _wasn’t_ sick, but Vóli looked as if he could deadlift a heifer with Herculean proficiency. On the other hand, Fíli's only experience with the terminally ill was what he saw on telly and he knew with his whole heart that Dís would never lie about something that serious. 

The room was stuffy as rooms get when a body sits in it for too many hours, the air blandly pungent from body heat, but not acrid. The sick-smell or evidence of fever-sweat that Fíli presumed would be strong enough to choke him was faint.

To underscore Fíli’s ignorance toward such matters, Vóli released from his diaphragm a snore that rattled the window and trembled the glass of water on the nightstand.

Fíli creeped toward the bed and reached out to rest a hand on Vóli’s boulderous shoulder.

“Dad?” He stage-whispered. “Dad, I brought you some lunch.”

Vóli snorted, scratched his belly, but didn’t rouse.

Doing as he promised Dís, Fíli decided to leave Vóli to rest. He leaned over to sweep a hand through Vóli’s hair and press his lips to Vóli’s sleep-damp forehead. The skin there was warm, perhaps slightly above average, but not Earth’s Core Hot like a suffering man’s temperature would be. Fíli thanked the universe that his father was, at least outwardly, doing better than Fíli had convinced himself Vóli would be.

“How was it then?” Dís asked before Fíli's big toe was through the doorway when he returned to the kitchen. Hands stuffed in his pockets and eyes to the ground, Fíli was trying to reconcile the jarring combination of growing relief and confusion and ebbing dismay that lapped in him, lazy waves lapping against his limbic shore.

Frankly, Fíli didn’t know how to answer her question. He’d been so driven by dread the last few days that the relief stole the wind from his sails. He was drained and in the mood for a nap à la Grandad in front of the fireplace in the living room.

Dís’ face smoothed into motherly affection when he said as much, and she released him with a hug and a peck to his fuzzy cheek.


	6. Chapter 6

The living room was washed in a gentle orange glow, white-gold fairy lights strung and whirled everywhere they could be. The Christmas kit had been removed from Grandad, Dís having fluttered in as Fíli and Grandad napped sweetly in front of the low fire, all except for a single silver strand of tinsel caught in Grandad’s Friar Tuck hair. Reindeer snowglobes and ornaments and stitchwork in the throws and quilts made a performance of prancing throughout the living room, over the bulky sofas and in a single iron hitch of six atop the piano. The tree stood, fluffy and bare, in the corner, its enormous body swallowing the space Dís had made for it by squishing the furniture together. The gingham curtains were drawn, sealing in the festively cozy atmosphere.

The tradition of decorating the tree as a boisterous group of too many limbs was one that Fíli had missed thoroughly, one that he and Dís had started together after his mother’s death. It was to fond memories of looping an eclectic collection of handmade and antique ornaments in the tree’s needles that Fíli fell into a restful sleep.

He dreamt of loud exchanges and elbows and his father’s carrying belly-laugh, of he and Kíli causing trouble by getting between legs on their quest to crawl under the tree and play action figures while the adults turned red from mulled wine, the volume of their voices rising the deeper they got into their cups.

Unfortunately, all good dreams had to come to an end.

Fíli came to rather abruptly to the dull ache of something trying to bore into his pectoral. He jolted in his seat, feet spasming on Sally’s back and breath hiccupping on the tail of a shallow snore. First, he pawed around his mouth to wipe away the gathered saliva at the corners, then he blearily searched the room for what could have possibly woken him. Sally – one of the pair of great Irish wolfhounds stretched lazily in front of the hearth – shifted, lifted her head and examined him from the side, reading him as dogs do for any signs of impending activity. When Fíli didn’t provide any, she returned her head to the floor and swiftly fell into another dog-sleep.

Another prod, twisted and more trenchant, snagged Fíli’s attention down to the blunt foot of a walking cane denting the plush fabric of his sweater. His brain was quickly rebooting, coals shoveled into the furnaces of all four lobes, as his eyes traveled from the rubber ferrule burrowed into his layers, along the sleek polished cocobolo shaft, over the Crypt Keeper fingers curled around the handle to coast over a navy sea of wool, up up up, where he was slapped by an intense, bullwhip blue gaze.

“You finally done behind stupid?”

“Yes, hello Grandad, it’s been so long, I’ve missed you too.”

“ _Oh_ , shut it.” Grandad scraped, removing the canefoot from Fíli’s person after a brief dig, falling back into the embrace of his armchair with a dry harrumph. “You’d better be back to make smarter choices, boyo, after the kerfuffle you caused on your way out.”

“…Thanks. Grandad.” Fíli responded thinly, eyes narrow and face flat.

Grandad was a cantankerous old goblin with enough teeth left to whistle when he complained. He was thin and misshaped under a bib of silver beard that grew down to his waist. Most of his expressions were relayed by sooty brows that resembled weasels doing the worm on his face. The ninety-eight-year-old was steadfast in his traditions which were as mercurial as his moods and he hated more people than he’d met with a passion that was both impressive and disturbing.

Also, he had a knack for acting more senile than most suspected he was, totally autonomous until he wanted someone to do something for him and then it was all, “ _Frangelica, why are the lights flickering!? Is there an air raid!?_ ”

No one knew who Frangelica was. Neither did Grandad probably but she earned him getting fussed over how he liked or left alone when it suited him better.

It was safer, in Fíli’s opinion, to take everything Grandad said with a grain of salt.

Didn’t make it any less unpleasant when on the receiving end of Grandad’s criticism, though.

They sat in stilted silence for a few minutes, both pointedly staring into the fire and avoiding the other’s presence. That was, as much as possible given the armchairs were angled inward toward each other, the distance between them small as they were tucked at poker-distance from the hearth. Grandad muttered under his breath, smacked his lips, and huffed out his nostrils while Fíli sat stubbornly quiet, cleared his throat to make whatever points his steely eyes and curled lips couldn’t.

“What brought you back anyway?” Grandad said after a battle of side-eyes and throat-sounds.

Fíli snorted derisively and cocked his head toward Grandad, “I came back to see Dad since…” He trailed off, uncertain how to phrase the truth since it seemed Grandad was missing chunks of his short-term memory. Or, what stoked a throbbing sadness in Fíli’s core, perhaps Grandad couldn’t believe that Fíli would have come back for anything, even his father’s waning health. That hurt more than Fíli would admit aloud. He rubbed over his heart and tensed his jaw.

“Why? Nothing’s wrong with your father.” Grandad said, dismissive, casting Fíli a look of hard suspicion. “You’re lying.”

Fíli guppied, loosed a sound of offended disbelief, and reared back as if whacked with a mallet to the face, “He’s _sick_ Grandad. Dís sent me a message _two days ago_. I came back as quick as I was able!” He wouldn’t have bothered defending himself except that he felt he had to. He _had known_ his character would be questioned at least once and he’d been wound up and ready to fight to prove he was still _good_ , still part of the family, since he’d stepped onto the train.

“Your father’s fine!” Grandad argued with his whole upper body, gesticulating broadly, cane sweeping dangerously near the delicate Nativity scene displayed across the mantel. “The man hardly sits still! He was outside this morning, brought in half the bloody cord!”

Grandad’s misremembering banked Fíli’s anger instantly, a sense of pity replacing it. “No, he’s unwell, Grandad. Dís wouldn’t have asked me home otherwise and you _know that_.”

“Do I? Seems everyone ‘round ‘ere thinks they know more than I do.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Grandad rounded on him, brows pulled up to his receded hairline which opened his eyes wide as they would go so he could pin Fíli with a fierce look. Fíli gulped under the force of it.

“Left that lad in a bad way, you did. Can’t hardly drag himself through the day without bringing you up once. Thinks I don’t know what that’s all about, _but I do_ ,” The last part was said in an ominous tone, reminiscent of a Disney Villain right before they set their diabolical plan into action.

Fíli loathed that he felt like the princess on the receiving end of said plan.

“He gets on well enough, but I can tell.” Grandad gritted, bony finger swirling the air in Fíli’s direction. “Hurts when love is taken from ye. Hurts _more_ when it stays without the one who caused it in the first place.”

“Uhm…” An icy, wet dread seeped down Fíli’s spine at the implication, “You’re confused, Grandad," He placated, "And that's okay.”

“Not the way I saw it. Not okay at all.”

The dread whipped into a flare of anger and Fíli bent forward, his own gaze unwavering, “You _think_ you understand but you don’t. I left because I had the chance to do something with my life—”

“And are you? Doing?”

“Am I do—? _Of course I’m doing_! I’ve been _doing_ for five years, successfully, thank you _very_ much.”

“You’re welcome.”

The carpet triumphantly pulled out from under Fíli’s feet, Grandad settled into his armchair, smarmy half-smile on his face. Fíli frowned as he combed through the conversation, tried to figure out what the hell had just happened. The problem with Grandad was that, often, talking to him resulted in three different topics at once and only he could decide which one was relevant. To say it was difficult to have a sane, rational discussion was an understatement.

“Right.” Fíli sighed, raked a hand through his hair and slouched in resignation.

Just when he thought they were tilting into another bout of controlled silence, Grandad spoke again.

“You goin’ to admit you were wrong?”

Fíli didn’t bother sparing Grandad any mind, eyes fixed on the thinning flames in the firebox. “Hm?”

“That lad has been moping about like a damn woman whose husband goes off to war,” Grandad grinded, “Fine enough but not all there.”

“So you’ve said.”

“Say you’re sorry, fix that mess. Sets my teeth on edge, the whole lot of it.”

Fíli rolled his eyes, his head moving with them to collapse on his shoulder, pushing an incredulous expression at Grandad’s profile.

“You don’t have any teeth.”

He could practically hear the whipcrack of Grandad’s scandalized look.


	7. Chapter 7

Fíli had trouble resisting Kíli, even when Kíli wasn’t physically there. Every molecule of his being was haled by Kíli’s orbit, be it to Kíli’s person or, in that case, the places where Kíli’s energy had made its impression in the fabric of the universe.

He knew it was wrong, inappropriate, infringing on _trespassing_ , but Fíli couldn’t turn himself around. Being in Kíli’s room was like stepping into a time capsule. Sitting there, on the bed where it had happened, in the walls that had seen every milestone of their relationship, Fíli couldn’t ignore the sting in his chest, behind his eyes, in his throat, hands trembling where they were bunched on his knees as he leaned forward to catch his breath.

Fíli had been a year out of university when he’d put Erebor in the rearview. There had been more to his leaving than what he suspected everyone thought. He **hadn’t** run away. The thing was … he hadn’t wanted to stay either. He couldn’t have imagined himself fulfilled, content, living the way he’d been raised to live; a slow, quiet existence, slogging through the same chores, doing the same thing, day-in-day-out, no variety, no excitement, until he had to step in and acquire a business he'd never wanted anything to do with. 

He’d been young, twenty-two, and he’d just wanted what any young person did: More.

Contrary to what Grandad insinuated in their conversation earlier, Fíli hadn’t left because of whatever Grandad thought he knew. He’d left because the success he strove for existed elsewhere. That it put much-needed distance between himself and Kíli, well, chalk that up to serendipity. Absolutely, Fíli could admit that what had happened between he and Kíli could've been deemed a factor, but the dominoes were already falling before he and Kíli had had their argument the morning before Fíli’s departure.

Kíli was a spectrum of passions and magnetism. People were drawn to him, to his charm and almost childishly simple view of the world. He liked something, he indulged it; he hated something, he paid it no mind. _Don’t fix what isn’t broke; if it feels good, do it_. Fíli was no exception. He’d spent his formative years and beyond attracted to Kíli in all the ways attraction could be experienced, from innocent to indecent. However, Fíli was sensible, had experienced more away at university than Kíli had having remained at home during his postsecondary education. 

Kíli had wanted things to remain the way they were. He was content to adjust his proportions to fit the confining vise of Erebor's fences which, as anyone could imagine, had not a rational discussion made when Fíli had revealed his plans to leave. What Fíli wouldn’t have given to continue to _pretend_. Until things had come to a head, he had been coasting on a naivety that inflicted the young and sheltered. Fíli had outgrown it by graduation, had become too big for Erebor. 

Not too big for Kíli though, but Kíli had had no desire to keep Fíli if Fíli had had no desire to keep his life at Erebor.

Which reduced him to wallowing, picking at his nails and holding the door closed against the barrage of emotions that wailed for entry, alone in a bedroom he had no business being in anymore, on a bed he would surely never be invited into again. A bubbling, bursting ache churned his gut at the idea. 

Kíli’s room was mostly the same, blue walls and blocky, masculine, walnut furniture. It was tidier than Fíli had last seen it, clothes in the hamper by the tall boy, closet neatly organized with a range of plaids and dark solids. The surface of the desk was bare apart from Kíli’s computer and a chipped _World’s Greatest Dad_ mug that held pens and long-dried highlighters, a drumstick with no origin story and a quill that Kíli had used as a prop in their Year 4 play.

The unmade bed smelled of Kíli’s shampoo and stale aftershave – same as he’d used five years ago – and something distinctly _Kíli_. Not that Fíli was sniffing his pillows, the air was merely saturated with Kíli’s scent.

God, Fíli missed him.

Once, Fíli had had an open invitation to waltz into Kíli's bedroom whenever he’d pleased. Now, Fíli had had to wait like some lurking, peeping tom until he knew the coast was clear – Dís up at the stables, Grandad in an armchair in the kitchen, feet still using Sally’s back as an ottoman; his father sleeping down the hall – before he could so much as _glimpse_ a fraction of Kíli.

It wasn't a secret. He'd screwed up. 

That fact that Fíli couldn’t reach out without wanting the floor to swallow him whole was a blinking, neon ode to that, but Fíli was convinced it had been for the best. 

“It was the right thing,” Fíli whispered at the faces of their younger selves, staring accusingly from a framed photo above Kíli’s computer. Fíli was shocked it was still there. 

So much of them lingered in every corner, from the pictures on the wall to the various tchotchkes they’d collected together – useless and strange except for the meaning they had. The bloody coaster Fíli had whipped at Kíli’s head the time they went drinking with the lads on Kíli’s 20th. Seeing it all together, one wave after another of crashing memory, sent Fíli into a tailspin. He’d assumed Kíli would have thrown everything out, or, at the very least, packed it all away to hide in the attic. Instead, Kíli had added things over the years, his life undisrupted and rolling ahead in a way Fíli hadn't allowed himself to think it would.

_“Jesus Fíli, don’t run, why can’t you just_ listen to me _!? No one—”_

_“This isn’t about No One, Kíli! You can’t keep your head in the sand forever! People—”_

Stop. Get up. Go.

Fíli stood and marched to the door. With a last selfish inhale of Kíli’s air, held in his lungs for seconds longer than necessary, Fíli slipped out and back down the hall to his own room before anyone could accuse him of snooping.

He’d made the smart choice, Fíli reminded himself. He’d done the right thing.

He **_had not_** run away.


	8. Chapter 8

Bofur and Nori swooped in with intent and a bottle of whiskey. They hadn't changed a bit.

At four on the dot, the dogs yowled and charged the front door at the first sounds of crunching footsteps in the snow out front. Sally and Gilly spun in circles though their energy wasn’t as high as the two banger-shaped hurricanes that whipped a track up and down the hall.

Dís was down at the barn, overseeing the final preparations and discussing music with Nori's cousin, Ori Clerk, who’d stepped in that year to coordinate the choir at the local church.

(Fíli had gone to school with Ori from the time he could toddle to the time he could take up a stool at the pub without being boxed behind the ears by family acquaintances. To hear Ori was involved in community affairs came as no surprise; though a mousy sort, Ori was fabulous at drumming up community spirit through the arts. It was fairly meant to be and Fíli couldn’t resist wondering if _he’d_ have fit in had he stayed and pursued a life closer to home…)

Grandad and Vóli were indisposed, both unlikely and unable to receive Bofur and Nori when they banged through the door, heavy boots stomping the snow off at the threshold before edging into the house around overexcited, furry obstacles. Both brought in with them the crisp scent of winter and the deeper, blunter smell of old wood and chore-heat.

Fíli treaded down the stairs from his room, tripping on the last when he spotted Nightmare Santa peering eerily through the window beside the door (" _Blimey._ " He uttered under his breath). Hands stuffed in his jeans’ pockets and shoulders shyly at his ears, he pitched a semi-smile and hoped he didn't seem too stiff. Although he kept in regular contact with Bofur and Nori, it had been ages since he’d seen them in person. It was one thing to send memes and funny videos and another to be present and engaged with the proximate energy of two very loud, very demanding personalities. As delighted as Fíli was to see them again, there was an awkwardness clinging to his back that he couldn’t shake.

Nori was the first to discard and hang his coat, kick his boots in the direction of the rack along the wall of the entrance haphazardly, and waltz into Fíli’s space without so much as a _how d’you do_. His farm-thick arms coiled around Fíli, just below his shoulders, and hauled Fíli into a tight hug. Nori arched his back, lifted Fíli from the floor, and twirled him around in a tipsy circle.

“Ah! It’s good to see you laddie!” He declared through a laugh, returning Fíli to his feet and clapping his hands down on Fíli’s shoulders, standing back to soak him in as Fíli bashfully did the same.

Five years might not have been long in the grand scheme of things but, to Fíli, it had often felt like a combination of eternity and no time at all. Taking in Nori’s appearance, Fíli was comforted to note that he looked exactly the same, aside from a few extra crinkles at his eyes and the addition of a gold incisor. The cheeky grin Fíli assumed stretched Nori’s mouth was interrupted by the considerable hook of his nose and veritably hidden beneath a short, unkempt beard, and Nori’s gaze evinced the mischief that accompanied him wherever he found himself.

Fíli pulled him in for another hug, patted his back twice then pulled away to say, “It’s really good to see you, too.”

Without preamble, Bofur shoved Nori out of the way and, in a similar pattern of actions, squeezed, lifted and spun Fíli like an exuberant cartoon Genie.

“Have you grown or have I shrunk?” Bofur chuckled, a wobble to his inflections, after he’d steadied Fíli with his big hands above Fíli’s elbows.

Fíli was man enough to admit that he wanted to weep at the sight of him. The bags under Bofur’s dewy brown eyes served to make them look rounder than they were, lending to a face that appeared much younger than the man who wore it. His mustache had grown into handlebars that curled away from his chin and his hair was a hat-matted mess, stuck up in places and flattened in others.

“Neither, trust me,” Fíli sniffed, casting his gaze to the ground, the tips of his ears and his cheeks red from an odd mix of embarrassment and elation; having that much undivided attention on him outside a boardroom was weird and uncomfortable, no matter how warm the emotion behind it.

“Come on,” Nori said, holding up and waving the bottle of whiskey, trodding down the hall while gracing Fíli and Bofur with a shifty smirk over his shoulder. “We have a lot of catching up to do!”

“It’s four in the afternoon!” Fíli protested mildly, sniggering. “We can open that beast later!”

“Aye, lad’s right,” Bofur thankfully agreed, “I haven’t eaten since breakfast. I’d say we do sandwiches first.”

“Lambs! All of you!” Nori scoffed but made a beeline for the breadbox all the same once they entered the kitchen, depositing the whiskey on the island on his way.

Bofur joined Nori in preparing the sandwiches, Fíli handing them plates and utensils and fetching ingredients from the fridge upon request. They moved around like they were there often which Fíli suspected hadn't changed; they spent more time in Dís’ kitchen than in their own homes with how many hours they pulled on the farm.

There was great, wheezy laughter and flamboyant story-sharing over a spread of more than sandwiches. Fíli found Dís’ charcuterie and soft cheeses, crackers and grapes and apples to slice. They didn’t bother with tea, instead drinking from the tap and splitting the carton of pulpy orange juice that no one who actually lived there drank. Crumbs flew around consonants, crusts were used to underscore facts, and everyone had tears in their eyes by the time the brittle voice of Methuselah croaked:

“Good God, could you keep it down?!”

Grandad proceeded to gripe about the noise despite having slept through it, a burrito of layers of quilts in his armchair at the woodstove. Bofur rolled his eyes to the heavens as Nori shook his head, both rising to move into the living room if only to avoid subjecting themselves to the epic poem Grandad was riling up to. Nori grabbed the whiskey and dug three bottles of beer from the drawer in the fridge, Bofur gathered three glasses and his water, and the three of them retreated to safer ground where they wouldn't be interrupted for awhile.

It was time to do what all blokes did to get properly reacquainted after long absences: Shots.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there be cocks ahead
> 
> **BroVance** , for the love of Christ, skip this chapter or we may never be able to look each other in the eye again...

_Kíli was dashing in his red plaid and sinfully thigh-hugging work jeans, holes in the knees and threadbare at the seams. His feet were bare, Kíli always complaining that his feet got too hot wearing socks around a house that Dís kept at July in Hell temperatures (inaccurate, his words), and his hair was a stringy mess of barn-sweat and too many rakes of his fingers – it was constantly falling over his eyes when he worked, needed to be pushed back every six seconds, but Kíli refused to wear a headband and his elastics had a habit of walking away._

_He didn’t look any different, not really, but the catalogue of memories and photos Fíli flipped through while he spent the semester away never did Kíli justice, never captured enough of Kíli to make them reliable. Kíli was motion and energy and silly flirtation, he was expressive – wore his heart on his sleeve – and communicated every thought with flourish, created his own language of movement. KSL, Fíli teased, able to read Kíli’s hands like Grade 2 English. Half of Kíli’s side of any conversation was said with his body._

_In every area._

_Fíli gushed; his stomach swooped, and his heart ticked up, a schoolgirl giddiness fizzing through his body like tonic. He didn’t know what to say, how to say it even if he did. It hadn’t been long, three and a half months, since they’d last seen each other, and they spoke almost every day, but there was an excitement scatterplotted with nerves that kept Fíli from freely declaring how fucking much he’d missed Kíli._

_Good thing Kíli wasn’t so reluctant._

_“Fee!” A sunrise smile burst across his mouth, both sensuous and boyish, enthralling Fíli and drawing him closer._

_Kíli shot forward and lunged, whooping a bright laugh when Fíli caught him under the arse. Fíli had had to drop his knapsack, the clunk of something heavy within hitting the hardwood floor. Kíli wasn’t paying attention but Fíli shot a prayer out to the universe that what was at the bottom of his bag hadn’t retained any damage. It would be a shit surprise if he had to present it sellotaped and chipped._

_Bah, he didn’t care. He widened his stance, locked his knees and used the strength in his rugby-bulged muscles to keep Kíli secure. Nothing else mattered when Fíli had an armful of squirming, happy Kíli, beaming down at Fíli with his legs tightly wrapped around Fíli’s middle and his arms loose around Fíli’s neck._

_“God, I missed you,” Kíli said, voicing Fíli’s earlier sentiment. “I think I drove mum mad, talking about you all morning.” He dipped his head and bumped the tip of his nose against Fíli’s, hovering close – so close – eyes going half-lidded and mouth parting on a contented sigh that warmed Fíli’s December-chilled skin._

_“Missed you more, baby.” It was easier to say now that Kíli had said it first. Fíli squeezed Kíli’s hip with the hand that cupped it and readjusted Kíli, shifting so the swell of Kíli’s arse was exactly where he wanted it. His voice was low and sandy, filled with breath and want, “So much.”_

_Kíli shuddered at the endearment, choke-whimpered in the back of his throat, pink tongue flicking out to wet his bottom lip and make it glisten._

_They hadn’t been together, alone like this, since the summer and the last they'd seen each other had been hesitant, somewhat awkward. The sexual ingredient had taken months to be fully introduced into their relationship, a dash at a time of lingering touches and charged closeness and heated looks that built the flavor of tension. Only once did they manage to get their cocks out – hardly, both still in their jeans in the loft, hay stalks prickling Fíli’s back through his t-shirt as Kíli writhed in the cradle of his legs, flies open, spit to ease the slide, but otherwise dressed._

_It was new and illicit, arousal driven by secrecy, and damn if it didn’t feel like the best thing on Earth. Fíli was vibrating with want, hadn’t been able to focus on much else, barely remembered writing his exams, since Dís had transferred the money for his ticket home._

_“Mum’s in the barn,” Kíli whispered, eyebrows pinched, sort of worried-looking except that Kíli’s hips were rocking, aborted-quick punches of need, seeking friction, “Dad’s on a ride,” A gasp, eyes fluttered closed, the hard line of Kíli’s cock a brand against Fíli’s abdomen. Fíli stuttered on a breath, his own cock chubbing up in his sweats – “_ Yeah _” – and he spun, teetering slightly, to leverage some of Kíli’s weight on the wall, his knees gone weak. “Thorin is at Bilbo’s and Grandad is either asleep or dead in the kitchen.”_

_Fíli snorted halfheartedly, rolling his hips and back, one arm slung under Kíli’s arse in support while the other came up to partially cage Kíli in. Kíli threw his head back, the friction building; Fíli swept his dry lips up the length of Kíli’s throat, puffs of air raising a trail of goosebumps._

_“That so?” Fíli said and then nipped under Kíli’s ear. “Is there a reason you’re telling me this?”_

_Kíli swatted his shoulder, chuckled, “Let’s go upstairs before I come in my pants.”_

_“Mmm,” Fíli leaned back, not far, just enough to get a good look at Kíli’s flushed cheeks and glassy eyes, blown wide for Fíli,_ because of _Fíli. “Race you there.”_

_“Mine or yours?”_

_His mind was foggy, clumsy with fantasies and anticipation, making it difficult for Fíli to puzzle out the question. When he did, he decided, “Yours,” because Kíli’s room was all the way at the end of the hall, though that wouldn’t mean much if someone paid attention._

_In a bold move, Fíli unceremoniously dropped Kíli back to his feet, grabbed his knapsack, and whirled toward the stairs, “Loser has to make orange chains!”_

_“Oi!” Kíli stumbled a foot before charging after Fíli._

▪□▪

 _“Fuck, baby, your_ mouth _.”_

_Fíli tried desperately not to fuck into Kíli’s throat but, watching Kíli, his eyes watering and lips stretched attractively around Fíli’s girth, tongue squiggling dirty patterns along the vein, Fíli wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep himself in check much longer. Kíli moaned, the vibration lancing through Fíli’s cockhead to his balls, into his bloodstream and reverberating in his skull like a siren’s song._

_“Shit, shit, Kee, I’m going to come.”_

_Kíli had been working him for ten minutes, hands and mouth, slurping around Fíli as soon as Fíli had dropped his pants and splayed himself across Kíli’s unmade bed, stroked himself to full hardness in a purposeful come-hither display. In the blink of an eye, Kíli had shucked his clothes and prowled onto the bed, pushed Fíli’s knees apart to make room for himself between Fíli’s legs and nudged Fíli’s hand away from his cock._

_“Let me,” Kíli had said, bitten his lip, coquettishly brazen, knowing what it did to Fíli. “I’ve earned it.”_

_On a long exhale, Fíli had acquiesced, “Yeah,” and had put a hand at the base of Kíli’s skull to guide him down._

_Fuck, either Kíli was a natural or he’d found a way to practice, because it took no time at all for Fíli to unravel. Now, Kíli cupped and gently massaged Fíli’s balls, moaned and panted through his nose. The sounds shouldn’t have been as much of a turn on as they were: Kíli choking whenever Fíli lost himself and thrust up, tip jabbing into the spongy back of Kíli’s throat, wet suction, skin slapping as Kíli jerked himself to the rhythm of Fíli’s harsh breathing._

_“Baby, don’t stop,” Fíli begged, back arching, fingers fisted in Kíli’s hair, “M'so close—ah!”_

_Kíli groaned, dragged his mouth up, a scant hint of blunt teeth, to suckle on Fíli’s sensitized tip, pointed tongue lapping at Fíli’s frenulum. A sneaky finger dipped below Fíli’s balls and_ pressed _– "_ Oh shit _!"_ _–_ _rocketing Fíli over the edge._

 _A kaleidoscope exploded behind Fíli’s eyes. His thighs spasmed, stomach clenched, cock pulsed in Kíli’s fist and blurted into Kíli’s slack mouth. Kíli eyes bore into his, black and heavy, desperation tight under his skin. Belatedly, Fíli felt a sticky-damp heat on his balls, dripping into his crack._ Fuck _, Kíli had come before Fíli could get his hands on him properly._

_Not that Fíli was complaining, floating and loose as he was. He didn't have the wherewithal to feel ashamed for greedily accepting the attention Kíli bestowed upon him._

_Kíli climbed up and flopped down at Fíli’s side, producing a t-shirt, old stains under the pits, from somewhere. He made a quick effort to wipe Fíli off, then tossed the t-shirt to the floor and settled against Fíli’s side, tucking himself sweetly under Fíli’s arm._

_Fíli rolled his head to the side to place a kiss to Kíli’s hair, resting his nose there for a minute just to breathe in the scent of him._

_“Thank you,” Fíli said sincerely, eyes drooping closed._

_“Mmm, thank_ you _.”_

_Fíli scoffed, “I didn’t even get to do anything.”_

_“You will, later.” Kíli yawned, nuzzling closer, nails scraping through the coarse carpet of hair on Fíli’s chest and belly. “We’ve got all the time in the world.”_

▪□▪

When Fíli woke, mouth stale and dry, tasting of rotted alcohol and an ashtray, the dream kept its claws hooked in him, stirred the memory until it was swirling like silt in water. Fíli was cold, naked under the sheet, the covers kicked to the end of the bed. His head throbbed and he wasn’t sure if it was the hangover or the guilt.

All he could think as he lay in bed, staring despondently at the ceiling, was, “Why couldn't I let that be true...?”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas Eve, frens!!

The table was modest in comparison to most of the furniture crammed into rooms back at the farmstead, all old as Erebor itself, built or bought by ancestors, accumulated, never replaced. The table in Thorin’s new kitchen, where he lived more modestly with his partner, Bilbo, was Thorin’s first achievement, carved from the ancient oak that had dominated its place in the forest since before the village was founded. He wasn’t sure if that oak in particular had anything to do with the tales of his family’s heritage and consequent namesake, but he’d admired it growing up and was the first to claim its wood for himself.

Much had happened around that table already, in the short time Thorin had been living with Bilbo. They shared meals and summaries of their days; long, insightful discussions; lazy mornings and jokes about the stories circulated in the local gazette.

Currently, that table hosted Thorin’s sister, Dís Durin (née Oakes), a pretty, heart-jawed woman with a button nose and pointy chin, thick strokes of dark hair and honey brown eyes – the spitting image of their mother. She was bundled in a comfortable burgundy sweater, two sizes too big, and blue jeans smeared with the evidence of hours spent cooking. In a pair of Bilbo’s slippers and hands around one of Bilbo’s favorite Christmas-themed mugs – shaped like Santa’s jolly face – Dís had made herself at home.

Thorin leaned against the counter, facing her, arms and ankles crossed casually as he listened to her confession, one that he hadn’t ever – in his wildest dreams – could have believed would actually happen outside of some novice Hallmark movie because, “Dizzy, you’re not making any sense.”

Dís had arrived in a flurry of frantic movements and worried expressions an hour before, rushed her way right past Thorin as soon as he’d answered the door. She’d only rung the bell once and had already had her spare key ready to open the door herself when he’d appeared. Clearly, she wasn’t mucking about. And furthermore, something had her in a tizzy.

So far, Thorin had gleaned very little from her rambling; she spiked off into tangents and convoluted justifications after almost every sentence. He knew somehow Fíli was involved, that there was something about Vóli and the flu he’d been recuperating from, and a text message.

Now, Thorin wasn’t good with phones, it took him ages to type out a text – his thumbs were too big for the letters on the screen and autocorrect drove him to the point of distraction – so he was well versed in how poor texting was to communicate. Apparently, if Dís’ frazzled state was any indication, she'd recently come to share his stance.

“Oh, Christ, Thorin, haven’t you been listening?!” Dís sniped, swiping the air with her whole arm. “I’ve made a horrible mistake, unintentionally mind, and I _don’t know what to do_!”

One of Thorin’s brows rose in dry response, “I gathered as much.”

“Well!?”

“Well, you still haven’t said anything that makes sense. Perhaps try _gathering your thoughts_ before you vomit them all over the tile. We just had them done.”

“You,” Dís pointed, “Are an ass.”

“And you came to me for help which I can only provide when I know what’s going on.”

Dís deflated with a hard sigh and fell back into her chair, legs stretched in an unladylike V as she slumped.

“I fucked up.” Dís started again, slower, more in control of herself, “I texted Fíli a few days ago to let him know his dad was sick.”

“Yes.”

“But the way I worded it …” She dug her phone out of her coat which she'd draped on the back of her chair, “It _could be_ taken the wrong way.” Dís reached forward to pass Thorin her phone after she brought Exhibit A up on the screen.

_Your dad is sick, has been for almost two weeks, could be dying._

“Jesus.” Thorin pinched the bridge of his nose, barely registering the _Are you coming home for Xmas this year?_ tacked on at the end.

“I meant it like, ‘he could be dying, the way he tells it’!” She said, mimicking the humor with a lighter tone, “As a _joke_!” Dís was wild again, broad sweeps of her arms, voice strained, eyes darting everywhere as if to find something to anchor her. “I know it’d been awhile since Fee and I spoke properly but I didn’t think he’d _take me seriously_!”

Thorin stepped forward, placed her phone between them on the table and took a seat. Legs crossed, hands folded in front of him, he watched his sister scrub over her face, through her hair, and then crumple forward in a defeated heap, elbows on her knees and face in her hands.

“I don’t know how to tell him his dad’s fine.”

“How does he not _know_!?” Thorin shook his head in disbelief. Fíli was smart, smarter than all of them; it was inconceivable that he hadn't figured it out after spending an entire day in the house. 

“Vóli’s been sleeping, the medication knocks him on his ass. He was out of it when I told him Fíli was coming home, don’t even know if _he knows_ what’s going on.”

Despite the clusterfuck his darling little sister, who he'd protect and support with everything he was capable of mustering, had managed to create for herself, Thorin had to find the whole thing a smidge amusing. He sniggered, tried to repress it at first, snorted and then just let go because _of fucking course_ Dís had managed to invoke a disaster from a simple misunderstanding. Regardless of her years, Dís had been a magnet for trouble since she was a child; she hated drama, hated confrontation, and yet tripped over calamity more often than Nancy Drew tripped into a mystery. Hell, Thorin was inclined to call it a talent. 

“Shut it,” Dís warned, glaring at Thorin though there was no heat behind it.

“You should just tell him, get it over with. Whatever happens, you’ll find a way to fix it.” Thorin held up a hand when Dís opened her mouth to argue. “You won’t know what to fix if you don’t confront him. Fíli is many things but he isn’t heartless. If anything, that boy has too much heart. He’ll understand.”

Thorin’s reassurance perked Dís up a bit, the pink in her cheeks and spark in her eyes gradually returning.

“I just … wanted him home.” She said quietly. “At first, I really didn’t care how it happened.” A sip of her tea to calm the roiling tide of her distress, “But then he asked me how his father was doing and—”

“And you went with it.” Thorin finished for her, placing his wide, callused hand over her daintier, smoother one. “You can’t be blamed for wanting him close again. For all intents and purposes, _you’re_ his mother.”

“So you don’t think I’m a horrible person?”

Thorin snorted, sat back and grinned crookedly, “Oh, shit, no, you’re awful.”

Dís collapsed into her folded arms on the table with a long, loud groan. It was rare that Dís was ever that careless or selfish, and while Thorin didn’t truly believe his sister was capable of any malignance toward anyone (apart from Mr. Greenleaf), as her older brother, it was his _sworn duty_ to tease her relentlessly.

“What does Kíli have to say about all this?” Thorin asked though he could guess, given where Dís’ mind had been for the last few days. Turned out, Thorin had guessed correctly as Dís’ head shot up, eyes bulged, and cried:

“ _Oh_ , _fuck me_!”

Thorin cackled. 


	11. Chapter 11

The air was fresh, crisp with the scent of evergreen, and softly cold, kissing Fíli’s cheeks and nose pink as he walked the road up the hill to the stables. At nine-thirty in the morning, two of the five draught horses, Bumpkin and Brandle most likely, were already out, hitched and pulling the empty sleigh along one of the trails through the forest, putting down tracks in the snow that had fallen overnight.

Fíli had heard Bofur jingling down the road and past the house earlier. Which trail Bofur had chosen – around the lake or near the stone ruins of Erebor’s first farm – Fíli wasn’t certain. Still, he hustled himself into a pair of jeans and out the door, hoping he had time to sneak into the stables and visit his two favorite ladies before he was forced to Human through a hangover.

His reunion with Bofur and Nori had turned into a trip to the pub, blood and inhibitions diluted by Tennessee whiskey by the time they’d clambered around the karaoke machine to serenade the four other patrons with ballads by Belinda Carlisle. Sam Gamgee – proprietor and barkeep alongside his wife, Rosie – had to pour the trio into the bed of his truck and cart them home at the end of the night, their world gone bokeh and rubbery.

How Bofur was tip-top in time to harness and hitch two draughts was beyond Fíli’s comprehension. He, himself, had had to _literally_ crawl from his bed to the door and drag his dehydrated carcass down the hall for a shower, followed by guzzling at least a half carton of milk, before he was able to entertain the idea of doing more than burying himself under blankets and regrets for the remainder of his stay. 

_Oh God, we sang Bon Jovi_ , Fíli grimaced, squeezing his eyes closed as if to prevent the full - though disjointed - memory from unrolling like a mangy carpet.

When he reached the stables, he peeled the door open a crack to squeeze through sideways and then quickly closed it behind himself, feeling around the wall to his right to flip the switch and douse the lights. There was enough natural light from the high window opposite the door that kept the shadows thin and grey. The persistent throb behind his eyes lessened considerably the instant the lights were off, the muscles strained less, and he was able to comfortably lift his chin to glance down the aisle toward the last two box stalls at the end.

Eagerly and with the self-restraint of a small child on sugar-rush, Fíli vibrated past the boarders – a pair of mahogany, pinto patterned paint horses – toward Myrtle and Mindy. The ladies were recently retired after years of sleigh rides and competitive heats, the strength in their huge bodies still impressive but nowhere near what it once was.

Myrtle noticed him first and nickered which, in turn, alerted Mindy whose monstrous arse had been the only thing of her on display, loomed right up against her gate. Mindy clopped and maneuvered awkwardly, her bulk preventing a clean turn, but eventually she got herself properly arranged and voiced her pleasure by whickering a chorus with Myrtle.

Both flapped her lips in his direction, the hollow clapping sound a boon for Fíli’s soul. Apparently – still able to interpret horse-chatter – his long absence was egregiously unacceptable but perhaps worth forgiving if he doted his attention on them.

“You’re absolutely right, girls, I’ve been a prick.” Fíli said lightly, fondness arcing his lips and hooding his eyes. He fished one of several pieces of wandering-hutch-fruit from the pocket of his coat – an apple with dull red and yellow skin – and tossed it in the air, quirking his brow in inquiry.

Between the two, Myrtle made the most fuss, nodding her head, tipping it to the side to implore Fíli with one heavily lashed, glossy, onyx eye; batting at him like a coquette. Mindy had, for some reason, turned herself around again and was flickering her tail at him.

Fíli tipped his head at Myrtle. “I guess you get me first, pretty.”

He drifted closer, empty palm held out for her rubbery lips to flutter against as he slipped his boot between the lowest rails of the stall gate and hoisted himself up, twisting to balance his thighs on the topmost bar. Myrtle lifted and dropped her head over Fíli’s shoulder. The weight and momentum of her action could have easily dismounted him but, Fíli’s pride flaring in his belly, he simply tensed his muscles and swayed with the movement. It hadn’t been long enough to erase his ease with horses as he’d feared.

“There you go,” He lifted the apple to Myrtle’s mouth, careful not to lose any fingers when she chomped down. As she crunched away contently, Fíli’s gaze went unfocused, mind suddenly packed with memories of the loft above him and the grooming supplies shelved along the wall on either side of the back door.

He followed the specter of his youth as he giggled and squealed, charging into the barn and jumping like a lemur onto Mindy’s gate, waving a baby carrot back and forth to bribe the skittish foal she’d been away from her mother.

Kíli tore in after him, all gangly limbs and scabbed knees, grin dominated by bunny teeth. He grabbed the back of Fíli’s sweater and yanked him down, hurrying to take Fíli’s place with a fistful of roughage. Mindy hesitantly approached, sniffed, knocked the bottom of Kíli’s hand with her nose and then dug in when Kíli uncurled his fingers from around the snack of grass and silage. 

With an expression of little-boy superiority, Kíli said, “ _See_? She’s not ready for carrots yet.”

Fíli stuck his tongue out and then shoved his way next to Kíli, gripped onto the gate and leaned over to scratch the seam of Mindy’s mane. The memory faded like a reflection in rippling water, leaving present-day Fíli alone with the taste of stale alcohol in his pasty mouth and the clench of happy-sad-yearning in his gut.

They’d been inseparable in their youth, best friends for years before their parents even glanced _that way_ at each other. They’d been so excited when they’d learned that they would be brothers _for real_. And then, the summer of Fíli’s 16th, Fíli had started glancing _that way_ at Kíli and couldn’t stop. Nothing had changed, Kíli was still reckless, always leading Fíli into mischief. Except that Fíli had kissed a girl at his birthday party, the one he’d been _first-ever-cringingly-innocent-relationship_ dating for two weeks, and all he’d been able to think about was whether or not Kíli would’ve launched an assault with his tongue like Maliandre had – slopping all over his chin. Or if Kíli would’ve been more careful.

Or if he'd rather it had been Kíli who'd shared his first kiss...

Myrtle bumped Fíli with the side of her head, jolting him out of his thoughts. She was trying to find the best angle to chew into his pocket, it seemed, and get after the other pieces of fruit.

“Think you’re so smart, ay?” He laughed and hopped down from his perch, fishing out another apple. “And for a second there I thought you just missed me.”

“She did.”

The voice traveled through Fíli’s ears, into his brain and exploded his temporal lobe, ceased every neuron in its tracks as time altogether stopped moving in any direction that made sense. Past and present collided, a maelstrom of tinny echoes and faded images flittering by, one after the other after the other in chaos; single-digit birthdays and double-digit tantrums and laughter and arguments and learning to shave together, food fights and dunking each other in the lake; teasing caresses and hard tongues and fireworks—Fíli’s reality churned, an old film reel jamming, frames blistering.

Fíli turned in cinematic slow motion to a soundtrack of stuttered breaths and ratcheting heartbeats, shock lodged in his throat like lead weights because there would never be a day in his life when that voice didn't affect him at a molecular level. Dís had been spectacularly wrong - it was only late morning, _not_ evening - and Fíli hadn't had the chance to mentally prepare himself. When his eyes landed on the speaker, all he could manage was a weak, splintered, “ _Kíli_?”


	12. Chapter 12

Kíli had been in Amon Lanc – two villages away from Dale county where Erebor was nested – to discuss an escalating territory dispute between Glóin and Greenleaf. According to Glóin, Greenleaf had been harvesting timber from Glóin’s land while Greenleaf insisted Glóin was, “ _planting new trees in my ground, I can do as I wish with them!_ ”

It was the pettiest Kíli had ever seen Thranduil Greenleaf and that was taking into consideration the night Greenleaf banned his niece, Tauriel, from ever seeing Kíli again because Kíli was, _“A degenerate hippie who needs a haircut!”_

Well, cut his hair Kíli had done, his spiteful nature leveled up to 1000, and had had it styled perfectly like the posh city boys. Along with pouring himself into a suit he’d spent a month’s wages on, Greenleaf hadn’t had anything to criticize when Kíli rocked up to take Tauriel out, could only splutter indignantly and fume through his ears.

It stood as one of Kíli’s greatest achievements.

Thus, when Glóin had asked Kíli to accompany him to his meeting with Greenleaf, Kíli had been more than happy to do what he could for the cause.

They’d spent two days in Amon Lanc sorting things out; Kíli wasn't obligated to be there in any capacity beyond moral support yet had found himself mediating negotiations after an argument had almost intensified to fisticuffs. As entertaining as that would’ve been, borderline Comedy Central, Kíli hadn’t been in the mood to let his friend get his arse whooped by a former Cambridge University boxing champ.

Glóin’s tree farm had taken a hit some years back after he was forced to sell a portion of his acreage to Greenleaf and the animosity had festered into a downright feud. Kíli had to stay his own hand with tremendous effort on a few occasions when Greenleaf took up the épée of his half-realized law degree, spouting legal rhetoric as an obvious means to pique Glóin’s rage as much as confuse him. Greenleaf was infamous for using fancy speak to befuddle those he deemed lesser.

His son, Legolas, wasn’t so bad – not so great either, but Tauriel vouched for him so Kíli had tried to be civil. Legolas had been a great help in solving the problem, at any rate; convinced his father that their industry had enough timberland to manufacture more lumber than their competitors already, _why go to war with a guttersnipe who doesn’t have much worth taking?_

The placation had made Glóin see red – the man was still ranting himself purple at the wheel of his car, slowing and speeding up behind Kíli as they drove back to Dale. Still, it had worked.

Tauriel was quiet in the passenger's seat, a snow-pale vision wrapped in jewel tones that showcased her bright red hair. She wore a long, knitted pine-green dress and crocheted marigold shawl that Dís had made her for her birthday. Tauriel had aged into her years with grace, as elegant and demur as she'd been when Kíli had stumbled clumsily in love with her two years after...

Kíli swallowed thickly, repressed the events that tumbled him clumsily into Tauriel's world, unprepared and unwilling to tear apart and examine those memories for the umpteenth time. Pointless, hopeless. He had yet to muster the courage to do anything about them and that day wasn't going to be the day he tried.

Nope.

It was a perfectly respectable Wednesday. 

Rather, Kíli split his attention between the road and Tauriel (and, in his rearview, Glóin stabbing the air with a meaty finger, on the edge of foaming at the mouth as he ranted to a phantom Greenleaf).

Tauriel passed the time leafing through the new contract Greenleaf’s lawyer had drafted, tongue stuck out the corner of her delicate mouth and forehead sweetly creased in concentration. She hummed every now and again, drummed her chin with three fingers as she did whenever she encountered something more confusing than it ought to be. Kíli watched her rummage through the door pocket without lifting her eyes from the document, and produce the red pen she’d been using to circle articles she believed were unnecessary or, as she’d said, _honestly, it’s imbecilic, where does he get off—?_

Kíli was pleased she was on their side, her own _fully realized_ LLB the sharpest weapon they had in their arsenal.

“Watch the road,” She chastised mildly, nose in the documents, a faint upturn to her rosy lips.

“I’m paying attention!” Kíli said and immediately turned his full focus to the empty stretch of hilly road ahead.

Tauriel smirked outright, fixing him with a sideways look, “Watching me work is hardly paying attention.”

“I can do both, I’m a multitasker.”

Tauriel raised a single, manicured eyebrow, dryly muttering, “Hm, decided to pick up that skill _after_ we broke up, did you?”

Kíli blushed crimson and sputtered through her twinkling laughter, “Now that’s uncalled for!” batting at her shoulder with the back of his hand when she threw her head back and laughed harder, knee coming up and shoulders convulsing, “It’s not that funny!”

“Your little _face_!” She wailed, interrupted by another buzz of Kíli’s phone that rested between them in the cupholder.

For the past ten minutes, since leaving Mirkwood, Kíli’s phone had been alerting him of all missed calls and messages - the reception in Mirkwood was, for some reason, deplorable. Kíli couldn’t imagine he’d missed anything urgent; if there had been an emergency, surely someone would’ve gone to get him, he reasoned. Although Tauriel had complained twice about the buzzing, Kíli was content to let it continue until he got home and had time to scroll through everything properly.

Tauriel was not so content and after his phone buzzed again, she swiped it from the cupholder, thumbed in his passcode and put it on silent.

“Oi, what if someone calls?”

“Everyone _already_ called Kee, and you still haven’t looked at it. One more hour won’t matter.” Tauriel chuckled. As she was about to black the screen, a message from Dís caught her eye, sent twenty minutes before they drove out of Mirkwood, all in capslock with an army of exclamation points in formation down half the notification bubble. Tauriel wasn't one to pry, she respected peoples’ privacy as she hoped people respected hers, and Kíli's especially, however she couldn’t help it when her eye snared on one word that rocketed her mind into orbit. Somewhere close to Saturn. In a parallel galaxy. “Oh my God.”

It took Kíli a moment to realize the shift in the air from playful to shocked seriousness. He glanced away from the road, squinting in confusion, noting Tauriel's slack jaw and wide eyes. He briefly turned his head completely in her direction as if to confirm that she did, indeed, look utterly flabbergasted, before returning his attention to the road just as it curved south.

“What? What is it?” He asked, worry prickling his scalp and tugging his gut in four directions. “What happened?”

“I—” Tauriel shook her head, a minute back-forth, more like a spasm than a speechless answer. “It’s … Kee.”

Kíli wasn’t a patient man, that virtue disintegrating entirely in the face of what could be a real crisis. If something had happened to his mum and he wasn't there—“Christ, Tauri, spit it out!”

All at once, words squashed and tumbled together, vented like a geyser, Tauriel spewed something Kíli never believed he would hear in all his remaining years of life.

“Fíli’s back at Erebor for Christmas!”

Thank heavens Kíli was a good driver and that they both had their seatbelts securely fastened. The car fishtailed, Kíli's motor functions bludgeoned by the sudden news which caused his arms to seize and wrists to jerk, throwing the wheel violently sideways. Glóin's purple face as it coasted by was one of bewilderment, mouth yawned open in a curse Kíli could hear over the sound of screeching tires. Glóin stopped some meters away, his car parallel to Kíli's, boot to bonnet. Tauriel's hands were braced, one white-knuckling the _oh-shit_ -handle, the other clawed into Kíli's bicep. When Kíli was able to tear his eyes from the trees, she was panic-stricken and ghost-white, gaping at him. 

Kíli's brain frantically tried (and failed) to catch up to him from where he'd lost it back down the road which could explain why Kíli thought it adequate to croak, "Good thing I just had the brakes checked."

Tauriel chopped him in the windpipe. 


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 🌟 BONNE ANNÉE MES AMIS! 🌟

The car _ding-ding-dinged_ , the sensor unheeded and the driver’s side door left agape behind him as Kíli flew up the stairs and onto the porch. Tauriel had been dropped at her house, both deciding it was best Kíli confront the situation alone. Although, with how rioted Kíli was feeling, perhaps it would’ve been smarter to have had her stay to deliver more of her karate-chop wisdom; he strongly believed it would be necessary.

Kíli tornadoed into the house against a resistance of four animated dogs, sparing a second to startle and cringe at the sight of Nightmare Santa where it listed against the wall outside _("Jesus fuck!_ "). He called out to Dís above the greeting percussion and listened with half an ear; she didn’t answer. Kíli picked his way over Merry and Pippin, shimmied around Sally and Gilly, stuck to the wall when all four bounded deeper into the house and then back, swooping around him like he was someone new they had to investigate. Kíli’s mind was too busy to keep tabs on the dogs which opened a window of opportunity for Sally to stick her snout into his crotch, a blunt jab right in his balls, startling Kíli out of his windmilling thoughts and shooting him about a foot in the air.

“Christ, Sally, _go_ ,” Kíli pointed toward the living room, tone sterner than a drill instructor. “All of you, go lie down!”

Sally and Gilly obeyed instantly, tongues lolled out the sides of their mouths and cheerful eyes sparkling their eagerness to please. They loped into the living room, likely to their blanket-beds at the hearth; they were good dogs, well-trained and, at ten years old, faster to mellow. The other two miscreants, however, weren’t so willing to go and continued to yip and jump their forepaws up in futile efforts to scale Kíli’s knee.

“I said lie down, _now_.” He would not be swayed by those worried-looking, dejected wiener eyes, usually responsible for melting Kíli’s soul to amenable gook.

Not today.

Kíli’s heavy brows darkened in seriousness, relayed the message loud and clear; Merry and Pippin retreated with synched airy snuffles and clicky pawsteps.

Path clear of moving obstacles, Kíli surged as if it were a matter of life and death – the inspector searching for the lost child in the last dramatized scene of the movie – bolting into every room on the ground floor, scanning the area for one or both of the people he needed to find. Vaguely, Kíli noticed that Grandpa, asleep in his armchair by the woodstove in the kitchen, had an odd air of self-satisfaction about him, something uncharacteristically merry betwixt the wrinkles of his slack face.

Kíli didn’t waste time pondering it. He dashed down the hall, grabbed the newel post to leverage himself around as his socks prevented him from making a clean, sharp turn onto the stairs. Taking the steps two at a time, Kíli flung himself through every door. First, Thorin’s old room where Vóli was ostriched on the bed, arse to the ceiling and head buried under a pile of sweat-stained pillows, snoring peacefully. Next to the empty bathroom then he zigged across the hall to Dís and Vóli’s room, zagged the guest room, the craft room—

Everything came to a halt when he flew through the door of Fíli’s old bedroom without much awareness of where he was entering. His feet stuttered to a stop when the scent in the air barged up his nose to uppercut his cerebellum in a Proustian assault. _Fíli_. Kíli fell back against the wall beside the door, his mind raced at lightspeed, _zip zip zip_ , through memories that made his eyes sting.

Fíli was there.

At Erebor.

After five years of being away, he’d actually come back.

Kíli couldn’t get his brain to reconcile it, couldn’t fathom that it was real because Fíli _was never coming back_. Not that Fíli had ever said so, he’d never claimed to want nothing to do with Erebor. Nevertheless, the silence had spoken to Kíli louder than anyone’s voice had over the years when they – his family and friends – had tried to pacify him with reassurances. Everything from _he needs some time_ to _he’s busy with work_.

He wasn’t deaf or dumb. Despite the others’ attempts to clog around topics that had the potential of involving Fíli, Kíli knew Fíli found time to talk to everyone else. It was just him; Kíli was the only one Fíli wanted to shed like dead skin.

In the first months, Kíli had raged and then he had mourned. The first year was the worst. The second not much better. He’d obsessed to the detriment of his sanity over what had happened the morning Fíli had left. Kíli wasn’t shy to admit he had a temper, that he’d said some things - yelled some things – that he ought not have.

Lord knew they’d had fights before – they’d had _that fight_ before – but Fíli had known him better than anyone and that had meant something to Kíli. In hindsight, to put that kind of blind trust in the notion that that knowledge meant unconditional forgiveness had painted him the village idiot.

_“Jesus Fíli, don’t run, why can’t you just_ listen to me _!? No one—”_

 _“This isn’t about No One, Kíli! You can’t keep your head in the sand forever! People see us and they see brothers. We’re_ brothers _. Eventually this’ll have to end, and I don’t think I can survive that if this goes on much longer!”_

_“Why? Huh? Why does it have to end? Because you’re scared? Of what people think they know?”_

_“Because I’m **tired**!”_

_Meek, hesistant, “What?”_

_“Of the lies, Kíli. The fact that I can’t be honest about what we’re doing. The fact that we feel we have to keep this a secret at all says a lot, doesn’t it? And it’s_ killing me _.” Tears in blue eyes, streaks on anger-flushed cheeks, big, hot hands firmly cradling a stubbly jaw. Broken syllables declare: “I’m in love with you and it_ hurts _, Kee.”_

_Before the argument formulated, before another word was spoken, before there was another sound made, Fíli was gone._

Kíli had had so much to say then, had had a counterpoint to every one of Fíli’s fear-fanned resentments. Regrettably, he hadn’t been quick enough on the draw and had ended up shooting himself in the foot, muted by floundering, static rage. Fíli had left, Kíli had stayed behind and had never heard from Fíli again.

Well, fuck it.

Fíli was back and Kíli wasn’t going to let Fíli leave again without the closure he deserved.

Obviously, Fíli wasn’t in his room, nor was he anywhere else in the house. The man had bat-ears ~~(unless he was suddenly deaf; was he suddenly deaf?!)~~ and would’ve heard Kíli crash about like a horse in a hospital.

A horse in a … _wait! That’s it!_

Of course, Kíli had no idea how long Fíli had been back, when he’d arrived, but Kíli was certain that if he wasn’t in the house, Fíli could be counted on to find Myrtle and Mindy’s company. Unwilling to allow Fíli any further reconnection with the draught mares, somewhat out of spite though largely out of impatience, Kíli gusted out of Fíli’s room.

Self restraint was for those with something to lose; he’d be damned if he waited for Fíli to come back to the house himself – anything longer than as many seconds as he had toes was too long and Kíli wasn’t keen on driving himself insane, picking apart every stray thought he would surely have of Fíli now that Fíli was within reach.

It was better for Kíli, in circumstances such as those, to jump in the deep end, go in blind, whatever other idiom pertained to acting without regard for consequence, because if he did take a minute to think, he’d likely take up residence in Tauriel’s basement until his mother called to give him the all-clear.

Anyway, Kíli’s best attribute was his impulsiveness, at least how he considered it.

Dashing back downstairs and stuffing himself into his winter kit, Kíli ran out the door and up the hill to the stables, passing Bofur’s car and putting prints in the snow over the tracks left by the horses and sleigh. He prayed Fíli hadn’t gone with Bofur. If he had to, Kíli would tack one of the boarders and go after them, his dignity squashed under the heavy weight of his scarred pride.

He was panting by the time he slowed and approached the door to the stables, left narrowly ajar, and was electrified all over again by the familiar sound of Fíli’s canting bass carried by the draft from inside. Even from a distance, Fíli’s voice sent ripples through Kíli. Whether the reaction was good or bad, Kíli would analyze later, choosing to sally in before he could dissuade himself.

“Think you’re so smart, ay? And for a second there, I thought you just missed me.”

It was a kneejerk reaction, instantaneous and unstoppable, the way a person throws their hands up to catch a ball. Kíli spoke in response, “She did.”

Everything that happened thereafter felt too big for the space where it occurred. Kíli’s whole world imploded, the fragments suspended in the vacuum of spacetime, as he watched Fíli turn on his heel, nearly tripping himself in his haste, motion blurred, the universe dragging around them.

Fíli’s expression shot through a myriad of emotions before resting in an unflattering fusion of surprise and distress. Regardless, he was more beautiful than Kíli’s memories had ever done him justice. His golden mane had been sheared short, fluffy and soft looking in a halo around his ears. His face was paler, lines etched where there had been none when Kíli had last seen him, and though he seemed eroded in his demeanor, as if his days spent a great deal of energy chipping away at him, Fíli carried himself tall against the challenge.

There was also a sadness in him, lips and eyes downturned as if permanently afflicted. Anyone with sense could see that Fíli wasn’t fulfilled the way he’d imagined he would be when he blew out of Erebor. The fire that had flared, magnificent and unwavering, in every ounce of his being, was dimmed.

And Kíli was drawn to him, magnetized and defeated.

When Fili’s gaze set entirely on Kíli, all higher brain function ceased. His limbs felt sluggish, strained against deep water as they do in dreams. He became only mildly aware that his legs were moving, proceeding forward to close the chasm that had widened with every day Fíli had wedged between them.

“You’re back.” Kíli’s voice quaked, barely a whisper. He was in Fíli’s space, half a footstep over the perimeter, the heat Fíli’s body exuded a fragile caress that warmed Kíli’s front where his coat was flapped open. His mouth twitched, unsure if it wanted to smile or frown, “You’re here.”

Fíli nodded feebly, his voice equally as frayed, “Yeah.”

Kíli lost himself in the spectrum of frosty blues in Fíli’s eyes, devoured the faint sprinkling of freckles across his cream cheeks and proud nose. Kíli’s hand began to lift of its own volition.

“Fee…”

Without giving it too much thought – jumping in the deep end, going in blind, not looking where he leapt – Kíli’s arm wound back then swung forward with the momentum of a man betrayed and landed a bone-cracking punch to Fíli’s face.

And, shit, did it feel good.


	14. Chapter 14

Fíli wasn’t prepared, his world narrowed to a pinprick in Kíli’s nearness. All he knew in that moment was the smell of pine and loam, clean, snowy December wind, and salty heat that wafted from Kíli, assaulting Fíli’s senses and rendering him stupid. The punch was a surprise even though he’d expected it, imagined it, the only physical contact he could sensibly fantasize between them.

He hadn’t been expecting it right then, however, and reeled back, hands flying to the pain Kíli landed, cupping his face and crying out sharply.

And then, instantaneously, something burst inside Fíli, scorching and alive, so intense it seared his vision red. It sparked on impact, Kíli’s fist the flint and Fíli’s skin the pyrite, and then licked through Fíli’s veins like fire. He was _angry_ , a berserk sensation that Fíli hadn’t let himself submit to in five years – always ahead of it, always in control. Dry tinder emotions erupted, finally unleashed after what seemed an eon of enduring only the dimmest vestiges of what the human soul was capable of. 

And then he dropped his hands, puffed his chest and growled, a rumbling, leonine thing of torture and righteousness, of retribution.

The heat burned through Fíli, taking charge of his extremities, spiking his fist through the air to return Kíli’s blow with one of his own. Knuckles bit the angle of Kíli’s jaw, the divots of Kíli’s teeth impressed against the flat of Fíli’s fingers through the tissue of Kíli’s cheek. Spit and blood sprayed from Kíli’s mouth, his head knocked to the side, spattering the arm of Fíli’s coat, the ground and the face of Myrtle’s stall.

Slowly, robotically, Kíli panned back to Fíli, expression thunderous, eyes alight and lips curled into a snarl. They stared each other down, breaths hard and bodies swelling with adrenaline and testosterone. Kíli spat a glob of viscus crimson to the side.

What followed was nothing short of an embarrassment on both their parts; grown men devolved to scrappy adolescents with something to prove. Neither had the excuse of _hormones_ , they both knew better – had matured, supposedly, if Dís was to be believed and Fíli’s own self-awareness could be trusted – and yet…

Faraway, Fíli heard the horses whinny and clomp, rearing toward distress, but he couldn’t focus on anything but Kíli, split lip and bloody chin, in front of him. Dangerous and devastating. Fuck, Fíli had missed him, still wanted all of him, and if all Fíli could get was Kíli’s violence, he was willing to offer his flesh to Kíli’s wailing fists.

But he knew he had to earn it, had always had to in everything they’d done together.

Suddenly, with a cry, Kíli ducked and sprang forward, flung his arms around Fíli’s thighs and toppled them to the packed dirt. Fíli landed with an _oomph_ , the horses neighed, and Kíli scrambled up the length of Fíli’s body until he sat triumphantly astride Fíli’s hips. One hand was pressed into the meat of Fíli’s shoulder, fingers clawed in painfully even through the down of Fíli’s coat. His other hand slung back, cobra quick, and came down in a whoosh. However, before Kíli could land his second punch, Fíli dug his heels into the ground, pivoted his hips and swiveled them sideways. Kíli dislodged with an involuntary, high-pitched yelp. Seizing his chance, Fíli heaved himself into position, pinned Kíli down with his whole body, built generously of two-hour-a-day weight trained muscle.

Kíli bucked and squirmed, grit his teeth and tried to flail. Fíli grabbed his wayward wrists before they could inflict any damage and readjusted above Kíli. The last time they’d been in a similar arrangement, there’d been fewer layers between them and less animosity. That thought, delicate and bitter, raked through the adrenaline and disproportionate anger and left Fíli weak, staring down at the man he’d once – _still, relentlessly_ – loved as he struggled for leverage so he could hit Fíli again. 

“Kíli, _please_!” Fíli tried, spots of red dripping onto Kíli’s cheeks from Fíli’s bloody nose. “Calm down!”

“ _You_ calm down!” Kíli bit back, strained, pulled his wrists free and began slapping at Fíli, some sort of aggressive doggy paddle that had all the stamina of a proper sparring match and none of the technique.

Fíli shifted until he was sitting on Kíli’s chest, a battle of grabbing and batting and blocking. “Hey! Quit it!”

A knee to the back.

“ _You_ quit it!”

A flat, stinging palm to the cheek.

“You started it!”

_Slappity-slap-slap._

“You deserved it!”

He had, hadn't he?

Relenting, Fíli rolled off of Kíli completely, accepted the few smacks Kíli was able to land, and sagged against the stall post, knees up and arms hanging between them, panting. The fight seemed to drain from Kíli as well who stayed on his back and stared sightlessly at the ceiling.

Around them, the horses settled and snorted.

The silence was lasting and tense. Fíli tipped his head back to rest on the wood, Kíli licked his lips and curled halfway up onto his elbows to spit another glob of blood and saliva. They didn’t look at each other but didn’t pretend the other didn’t exist for which Fíli was moderately grateful. He’d wanted Kíli’s violence, he’d wanted to earn it by foisting his own, desperate for Kíli’s touch, his attention, anyway he could’ve had it, and yet, in the aftermath of receiving what he’d asked for, Fíli wanted more than anything to hide.

He’d done exactly the opposite of what he’d intended when he’d left; one didn’t protect someone with knuckles and knees.

“Why’d you come back?” Kíli murmured finally, gaze fixed on the back door.

As Fíli opened his mouth to answer, the wheels on the front door squealed open and a storm rushed in.

Dís was frazzled, hair a mess, and clothes rumpled, eyes crazed with that careful blend of concern and fury that only a mother could achieve. Behind her stood Thorin looking more put together but no less worried – though, unless one knew him, his expression could be misinterpreted as bland tolerance. Dís barely got her foot through the door when a stampede for four dogs came bounding in, barking and leaping all over Fíli and Kíli, lapping their faces with undiscriminating love and puppy kisses. The dogs traded humans and the humans sighed and chanced feeble glances from under lashes, white flags waving behind their eyes.

“See,” Thorin said considerately to Dís, “I told you Kíli would get your text.”

Dís’ supersonic glare cracked Thorin’s smug smile right off his mouth.

.


	15. Chapter 15

Once the boys were inside, clouds of doom and gloom loomed above their heads, Dís wrangled the dogs and marched up the porch steps, a shiver visibly wracking through her when Nightmare Santa caught her periphery (“ _God Almighty._ ” She clutched her heart). Thorin didn’t fair any better, grimacing at the scarecrow’s creepy, large, glossy-black-void button eyes. The screech of horror movie strings was not a warning from the universe that the thing was capable of gruesome feats but a sign of Thorin’s overactive imagination.

It had to be…

Thorin followed Dís down the hall while the boys tromped upstairs, and entered the kitchen as Dís began to herd Grandad toward the living room. She was insistent and growly and blatantly anxious for privacy to discuss matters while the boys were occupied.

Grandad, the uncooperative goat, went with great fuss; huffing and puffing, collapsing with an arm against the wall and declaring to see white lights and hear angelic choirs - Dís rolled her eyes so hard it looked like she almost sprained a muscle. Thorin, who’d never been patient with Grandad’s griping and theatrics, waltzed up to him and hoisted his brittle, birdbone body into a fireman’s carry.

“Come on, you impossible weasel.”

“You’ll never take me alive, Jerry scum!”

Grandad slithered and squirmed his cadaverous form, raised his cane and shook it to accent his threat. Thorin’s expression flattened at Dís who threw her hands up in exasperation. Grandad baby-gummed the shell of Thorin’s ear in an attempt to bite his way to freedom. Thorin’s eye twitched at the feel of slimy drool and Grandad’s perseverance.

“Please stop that.”

“You’ll have to kill me first!”

Thorin wasn’t kidding when he said, “That can be arranged.”

He deposited Grandad in his armchair, Sally and Gilly already flopped on their sides at its feet. To Thorin’s relief, Grandad went limp the moment he was ensconced, hummed and smacked his ugly mouth contentedly and waved Thorin away as a king dismissed a servant. 

When he returned to the kitchen, he found Dís flitting from cupboard to cupboard, hummingbird swift, pulling out a variety of teas and cups that he knew no one had any interest in. Her nerves were shot, he could tell, hands trembling minutely, fatigue and guilt bagged under dull brown eyes. The soft, sympathetic part of him, that he shared with a very limited number of people, supposed he should offer his support or comfort – his baby sister was, after all, coming apart at the seams. Not unlike the terrifying wraith that haunted her front porch. 

However, his more practical side beat that cookie-dough center to the punch and shoved through his teeth before he had a chance to word it more delicately, “That’s one problem solved. Now, what are you going to do about the _dying husband_?” 

Dís bull-huffed out her nose and shushed him with a scowl.

“I don’t know yet.” She whisper-yelled, then further explained in a rush at Thorin’s cynically arched brow, “Obviously, I’m going to say something. I just think that perhaps they” – she gestured to the ceiling – “should talk first, sort out whatever happened in the stables before I spring something like his father’s rather miraculous _resurrection_ _on him_.”

The last bit was chewed out, fists pounding the surface of an invisible table. Dís was coiled and ready to strike if Thorin so much as _breathed wrong_ , he understood, but it had to be addressed given the immediate problem, “Well, I think I heard Vóli go to the bathroom so you might want to come up with that anastasis speech in the next, oh” – he glanced dramatically at a watch he wasn’t wearing – “seven seconds.”

While Thorin couldn’t be one-hundred percent certain it _was_ Vóli he heard and not Fíli, whose room was close enough that the groans from the floorboards above them could have been _his_ journey to the bathroom, the familiar grinding squeal of the bottom hinge Thorin recognized as being from his old door was a good indication that it had been Vóli. The click of the bathroom door closing sounded like a gong through Dís' paranoia and stirred her into frantic action.

Dís', “You’re the bloody worst!” was flung over her shoulder in her haste to make it upstairs in time to get ahead of the situation. Thorin proceeded to hear her smaller, more muffled steps speedwalk down the hall and to Fíli’s room where she knocked, was received – Thorin could scarcely distinguish the light cadence of their exchange – and, it seemed, was invited in. Fíli’s door closed and two sets of footsteps creaked together toward what Thorin surmised was Fíli’s bed where Dís would undoubtedly distract Fíli with her motherly ability to probe out an account of what happened in the stables.

“How did we get here?” Thorin asked the parade of cups Dís had previously arranged on the counter.

The toilet flushed, the pipes complained, and Vóli’s elephant steps made their path back to Thorin’s old bedroom cum sickroom where he'd been recuperating from the nasty flu that Thorin suspected Bombur was responsible for passing along. (Bombur had been away and had returned agued. According to his wife - a plum-faced creature with a knack for hysterics - Bombur was still affected in the lungs.) Thorin listened to Kíli who made circles above the rear of the kitchen, and to the pitter-patter of teeny paws as Merry and Pippin trotted into the kitchen to drink from their bowls. He was entirely distracted and thus, when Jacob Marley’s ghost rattled in from behind, Thorin couldn’t be blamed for startling quite as dramatically as he did.

“It’s love ‘ats got them both tight as a virgin’s cunt—” The ghastly voice knelled through sandpaper.

“ _Holy sweet Mary!_ ”

Grandad skulked past Thorin to flick on the electric kettle, unfazed, “Bet you never thought the milky bastard’d come back, after running away like that, ay?” Grandad cast Thorin a conspiratorial look complete with wiggling ferret-brows.

“We need to get you a bell.” Thorin muttered with a hand over his heart.

He watched Grandad putter about and fix himself a cup of one of Dís’ fancy, loose Fortnum blends, all the while talking over anything Thorin might’ve had to say, “Still love each other though, those morons. S’bout time they sorted themselves out. Face to face, like real men.” Grandad drew punctuating scribbles in the air with one skeletal finger.

By then, Thorin had connected the dots and deciphered what Grandad was rambling about, let Grandad warble on as he tuned him out, criticisms washing over him like white noise. Until:

“—meant to be together. Love should be handled properly, s’what I always say, and love like that especially! They were too young for it then but now they’ve got brains in their skulls to use, I s’pose—” and on and on it went while Thorin’s brain was malfunctioning over the insinuation Grandad just let fall between them like a hunk of dead meat.

After a short delay, Thorin caught up and quickly forced his tongue to get with the program, “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“‘Bout what?” Grandad frowned with all of the skin on his face, squished up like a raisin. His tea was held by the handle in a trembly hand, splish-splashing against the inside of the cup but not quite over the rim. Grandad shuffled up to Thorin, one eye wide and the other slitted and both suctioned on Thorin’s face as if he could read Thorin’s mind.

“About,” Thorin stopped, leaned away. Grandad might’ve been half his height, but the man’s strangeness was tall and too close. Thorin cleared his throat and started again, “About the boys loving each other. Of course they do, they’re brothers.”

“No they’re not.” Grandad grinned. Sort of. More of a maniacal showing of where-teeth-should-be.

Thorin brushed it off, “Close enough.” Then he hesitated, unsure if he wanted to continue, wanted to scratch the surface he'd been led to. But so much of him _had to_. If only to understand what catastrophic event had exploded between his nephews to cause five years of mutual avoidance and pain. They'd been inseparable since daycare, nothing short of divine intervention could have split them up and while Thorin was open to the idea that God Himself had come down and had given them a reason to stay away from each other, he was willing to give a more rational explanation a chance. “What do you mean, then, that they loved each other?”

“ _Love,_ ” Grandad corrected and slurped his tea, an irritating sucking sound that grated Thorin’s nerves. “Those boys belong to each other, you’ll see. If only they’d listened to me back 'en! Jumped right into playing with each other’s willies—” Thorin’s whole upper half heaved “—should’ve taken my advice! You gotta romance,” Grandad shimmied, two-stepping stiffly with an invisible partner, “Woo. But no one bothers, do they, nah, you all think I’m mad, but I know things! I know _everything_!”

Grandad saw himself out, tone frosting into something menacing that Thorin ignored, too busy with the nuclear meltdown he was having at the island. Although the source was unreliable, the information filled a lot of gaps, made a horrible kind of sense when applied to hindsight.

Fíli. And Kíli. Had ... 

“Holy sh—”

Thorin didn't faint. 

He simply decided to take a nap right then and there on the crumby kitchen floor.


	16. Chapter 16

_Fíli was small and golden and Kíli liked him very much. He decided, on that first day of class with Mrs. Arwen – “It is just ‘Arwen’, Kíli, we needn’t be so proper” – that he was going to be Fíli’s best friend before anyone else could have him. And it worked! He went right up to Fíli’s table when they were dismissed for Snack Time and said, “We’re going to be best friends.”_

_And Fíli said, “Okay,” all curled up like a caterpillar with his arms around his middle and his eyes on the bright orange tabletop. Kíli’s brow furrowed and his head tilted sideways as he regarded Fíli. That wasn’t the reaction he’d been expecting. He was absolutely sure Fíli would be as excited as Kíli was about being best friends. After all, Kíli was cool. Interesting. His mummy said he had a wild imagination for games and adventure. Fíli should’ve been happier._

_“Don’t you want to be my friend?” Kíli asked, crossing his arms and jutting out his chin, face contorted into something mean, probably – his mummy kept telling him how_ vishuss _he came off whenever his eyebrows pressed down. He didn’t know what that meant but he’d made Ori cry once just by looking the way his face felt looking at Fíli so it couldn’t have been good._

 _Kíli tried to relax his expression. After all, it wouldn’t do to scare Fíli even if Fíli didn’t want to be his friend_ right then _._

_Fíli’s head shot up, yellow curls bouncing, and he said, “Yes I do! Very much!”_

_“Then what’s the matter?”_

_Fíli was quiet and kind and awfully shy, but it still surprised Kíli to hear Fíli admit that he wasn’t very good at making friends; that he didn’t think anyone wanted to be his._

_“But you’re pretty.” Kíli was confused, he’d seen the way the girls twisted their pigtails and giggled around Fíli when they asked for his colors. Fíli’s were the best in the class, the really huge box with the neons and the bronze and silver, “They all want you to be their friend.”_

_“Oh. No one told me. I thought they were just being nice.”_

_Fíli shrugged his little shoulder and took another bite of his snack, going pink in the cheeks and the bulb of his nose. Kíli smiled, big and broad, and plopped down beside Fíli to unwrap his own snack – a glossy red apple, sliced in chunks with the skin still on, and a grape juice box, even though grape juice was his least favorite._

_“Well, I’m not being nice. I’m telling the truth. I’m your friend now and you’re mine and we’re going to be together forever!”_

_And that was that._

▪□▪

 _Three years later, Fíli and Kíli were in Year 3, learning about forces and magnets, adding and subtracting from numbers as big as three digits, and spelling words like_ experiment _and_ particular _. Fíli was marvelous, intelligent, read smooth and easy when it was his turn, and remembered the differences between all the rocks they studied; which ones were hardest, which ones were softest, what they were used for._

_Fíli was, to Kíli’s mind, brilliant but too serious. He did all his homework right away after school and did extra work sometimes when he finished a worksheet before the rest of the class, studied from the minute they were told there would be a test. Fíli’s tests always came back covered in stars or smiley faces._

_Kíli wasn’t nearly as good but he was en—enthuziastik, their teachers said, and he was funny, made everyone laugh. He mostly cared if he made Fíli laugh, anyone else was just a bonus. He did well, sevens-on-tens mostly. Where he excelled was in sport: Swimming, running, jumping, catching, throwing. He loved kicking the ball around the field when the weather was nice and they played outside._

_As loyal best friends, they supported each other so neither would fall behind. Fíli helped Kíli with maths and science. Kíli practiced kicking and catching a ball with Fíli until Fíli was able to do so without fumbling or dodging. Fíli tutored Kíli’s enunciation and spelling. Kíli taught Fíli how to do the best somersault. Apart they were fine, but together, they were invincible._

_And inseparable. Joined at the hip, Fíli’s mum had laughed once. Not harshly, like Kíli’s dad did that one time; Fíli’s mum was nice, an angel with long, golden hair and white-like-milk skin and a moonbeam smile. Kíli liked her a lot._

_On weekends, Fíli and Kíli alternated homes. They mostly spent time at Fíli’s – it was bigger and there were horses. Weekdays were trickier. Not to say they weren’t glued to the other’s side, they were. They were in the same class, their desks side-by-side even though the teachers always made a comment at the beginning of every term that Fíli and Kíli weren’t where they should be according to the list._

_After school they squished into the same seat on the bus, second to last on the right – Kíli against the window, Fíli on the aisle, Kíli’s bulky knapsack between them as a makeshift table so they could play Yu-Gi-Oh. Annoyingly, their parents were sometimes too busy to chauffeur whoever needed chauffeuring, but they managed at_ least _three afternoons together._

_That day they were at Kíli’s. It was a drizzly Wednesday and they had spelling homework due. First, Kíli wanted to play Legos and so they trampled upstairs, feet like elephants', and overturned all four of Kíli’s buckets, dumping the blocks across his racetrack rug and chirping their ideas for a fortress as tall as Kíli’s bed._

_And then Kíli’s mum came in looking tight and unhappy and held out her hand, explaining that Fíli had to go with her and Kíli had to be on his best behavior for Bofur who had just arrived to watch him. Fíli left, all twisted up in uncertainty, like when the principal called someone to his office but there hadn’t been any fights, no one knew what they’d done wrong. Kíli gave Fíli his best smile, the one that made Fíli’s face open like a morning glory, and held Fíli’s hand the whole way to his mum’s car._

_Fíli was allowed to sit in the front, which was weird; it made Kíli’s tummy sink to his shoes. He didn’t understand it then but, when his mum returned with Fíli awhile later, it made sense._

_Kíli met them at the door, having heard the tires crunch the gravel as it pulled in._ _Fíli was shriveled up when they entered, lip bitten so hard or so often that there were tiny beads of blood in a line. Kíli put an arm around him and led him back upstairs. He hardly noticed his mum and Bofur go into the kitchen and take a seat at the table, his mum trembling and staring at the wall, her back to them, while Bofur put his hands over hers. Kíli only realized something was really wrong when he heard her suck in a shuddering breath and hold it like she had done a lot when his dad had left the year before._

_“Fee?” He ventured once Fíli was sitting on Kíli’s bed. “What happened?”_

_Fíli sniffed, thick and wet, and his bloody lip trembled, and his eyes got small and crinkly and then he blurted, words round with spit, “Mum’s got in an accident!”_

_Kíli didn’t understand. His mum had accidents, one just yesterday; she had cut her finger while she’d chopped carrots for soup. And she was fine! Kíli thought it best to tell Fíli that since Kíli apparently knew more about grown-up accidents than Fíli but Fíli didn’t believe him, coiled up tighter and started sobbing._

_Without hesitation, Kíli jumped onto his bed and knelt beside Fíli, not bothering to wait until Fíli turned to face him before crushing Fíli in a hug. Fíli’s tears soaked spots into the shoulder of Kíli’s shirt but Kíli didn’t mind, his mum did the washing almost every day and usually it was because Kíli’s clothes were covered in mud._

_Whatever accident Fíli’s mum had had, it evidently wasn’t going to be solved by sticking on a band-aid. Kíli’s tummy clenched and the underside of his jaw felt tense. He had to do something._

_In the same manner as his mum did for him when he was upset, Kíli rubbed a hand up and down Fíli’s back, the other pet Fíli’s curls flat. He hushed Fíli in the softest voice he could manage, rocked him gently. When he got tired of kneeling, Kíli brought them both down onto the bed, Kíli leaned against the wall and Fíli huddled in his lap, kitten-small between Kíli’s legs._

_“What’s going to happen, Kee?” He asked, wobbly, in dire need of the tissue box Kíli couldn’t reach, and he didn’t intend to untangle himself from Fíli when Fíli needed him close._

_Kíli considered the question, thought about it properly – long and hard (“Think before you speak, mister” his mum’s voice demanded) – and then said, “I guess I don’t know if your mum’s going to be fine, Fee. But you can have my mum, if you want. We can share.”_

_Fíli stilled, his whole being silent against Kíli and Kíli didn’t like how that felt. Not at all._

_“Fee?”_

_A hiccup and then, “Yeah?”_

_“Of course. We’re already married – ” Eowyn had married them last week at recess because, according to Fíli’s dad that night he yelled at the telly, anyone should be able to marry so long as they loved each other very much. And Kíli didn’t love anyone as much as Fíli. Except his mum but even Kíli knew sons didn’t marry their mums, “ – which means we’re family. And families share everything, right? What’s mine is yours. Even my mum.”_

_Whether that made everything okay or not, Kíli couldn’t tell, what with Fíli’s face smooshed into his neck, but Fíli had stopped crying so Kíli thought that must’ve been the right thing to say._

_Afterward, when Kíli’s mum had them changed into pajamas and had tucked them into bed, Fíli’s voice, craggily and rough, had said, “Promise you won’t leave me, Kee.”_

_“I promise.” Kíli said and he meant it with his whole heart._

▪□▪

_Kíli didn't know how to make Fíli feel better the day they dressed in black and watched Fíli’s mother sink into the mud. The idea of sharing his mum didn't seem to help anymore and he was scared because Fíli might’ve been right there, but he felt faraway. All Kíli could do in the end was repeat his promise over and over again, "I will never leave you," a hundred times in a hundred different ways._

_Fíli held his hand tight and stayed over for a whole week and eventually Kíli made him laugh, even if it was small and full of air._

▪□▪

“ _Fuck_ ,” Kíli kicked his dirt-stained jeans away after stepping out of them, angry at the memory that had come unbidden to his mind.

He’d kept his promise. He _had_. It was Fíli who’d left _him_ ; who’d run away to the city and hadn’t returned because he’d been scared shitless of things neither of them had any control over.

And yet, Kíli wasn’t so sure anymore. After countless instances of slicing their relationship apart and shoving the pieces under a microscope, he often wondered if he’d done the right thing by avoiding Fíli, refusing to be the one to make the first move. Time had eroded that stubbornness, sure, but by then Kíli simply felt too awkward or too stressed to reach out unprompted.

Kíli paced a U around his bed, groaned and then slumped onto the end of the bed, held his head in his hands and begged the universe to make sense.

It ignored him completely.

Rude.

Distantly, he heard the toilet flush and the bathroom door open, footsteps creak down the hall and another door close. Fíli must have finished cleaning up; he supposed it was his turn. Kíli yanked his t-shirt over his head and tossed it in the direction of his hamper, grabbed another from where it was buried in the mess of his unmade sheets and gave it a cursory sniff. It was fine. He slung it over his shoulder and bulldozed out of his room, clad in nothing but his boxer-briefs because who the fuck cared.

Fíli’s door was closed when he passed it. The immature (read: dominant) part of Kíli gave the innocuous panel of wood the two fingered salute for good measure as he walked by. He reached around and flipped on the light in the bathroom before he stepped in, not bothering to close the door behind him since he wasn’t dirty enough to merit a shower. Just a quick sponge at the sink would do him fine. Nevertheless, the door moved in increments until it was narrowly ajar, the angle of the old house, sloped inward, preventing it from staying fully open. 

The bathroom was recently updated, the one room in the house not currently stuffed with heirlooms or ancestral furniture (the distinctive, rodentesque visages of Great-Great-Grandfather Nain and his wife leering out from their ornate oval frames on either side of the small window notwithstanding. According to his mother, there'd been nowhere else to put them). The bathroom was painted a pale mauve with dark fixtures and white and gray marble accents. A claw-footed soaking tub took up most of one wall, the toilet at the end facing the corner shower with French doors. The imitation-walnut floor was covered with a rectangular, Moroccan-inspired rug that Kíli shoved out of the way and replaced with the bathmat and a towel.

He placed his clean shirt on the toilet to avoid getting splashed on and grabbed his bodywash from his floating shelf in the shower as well as a facecloth from the vanity drawer.

The world grinded to a screeching halt when he caught his reflection in the mirror. It was odd, he thought, that of all the instances where he’d earned a bloody lip, his brain insisted on punting him back to the evening Fíli had come back with Kíli’s mother. A tiny boy with raw lips and grey undereyes, weepy and begging for someone to stay, floated behind Kíli’s closed lids when he scrunched them together. 

Kíli’s bottom lip, numb until that moment, stung acutely, pulse throbbing where it was split in the middle. He grit his teeth and gripped the edge of the sink, hating himself and the hollow voice in his head that reminded him – not for the first time, _you could’ve fought to keep your promise_.


	17. Chapter 17

Dís’ henning was persistent and bordering on obnoxious, as if she were running on a caffeine injection straight to the brain. She asked a waterfall of questions and wouldn’t wait for more than half an answer before she clucked in with the next. Bewildered, Fíli let her fill the air with her anxiousness, hands fiddling and eyes skating to the door as if she were expecting the Devil Himself to walk in at any moment.

Dís was attentive, nurturing, sometimes bullheaded but always understanding. It was unusual, to say the least, that she be so wound-up, her babble sped up like an old VHS on fast forward. Fíli had never seen her that way and was wrought with shame because of bloody _course_ she was upset. Her husband was ill - he felt sick, never having asked for more information on that front. She’d had to assume complete responsibility of the everyday running of Erebor with only a few extra hands to help her. Plus, she was in charge of the planning, assembly and execution of the village’s most anticipated event, the Christmas Eve dance.

The Christmas Eve dance was perhaps a shadow of the great events Dís used to organize but she thrived doing it and always approached it like it was going to be featured in a magazine as her weddings had been before she’d met her ex, Kíli’s father.

It was her treasure and all Fíli had done so far was disrupt her hard work. A nuisance who swept back in and acted as if he expected to be catered to the same way everyone catered to Grandad. He’d hardly lent a hand, he realized, apart from the orange chains and delivering his father’s lunch. There was so much to do around Erebor – keeping the wood stocked, feeding the animals, cleaning, cooking … Grandad – and Fíli hadn’t so much as lifted a finger, as if waiting for an invitation from _his mum_ in the house he'd grown up in.

Instead of taking initiative, he got into a fistfight the second he was reunited with Kíli (it didn’t matter that Kíli had started it, Fíli was too old to have indulged him); he’d just scooped another glob of worry onto Dís’ plate. 

God, he was an idiot.

“—you understand that I love you both equally, you’re _both_ my sons and I wish that you two would get along like you used to. Whatever happened, happened, Fíli. It doesn’t have to be that—” She was saying when Fíli vaguely heard the sound of footfalls preceded by the bathroom door opening. Anything else was muffled by Dís’ harried diatribe. 

Fíli listened until she started to go purple, at which point he reached over and put a hand on her knee, a timid, concerned slope of a smile on his lips. She inhaled, a drawn, gaspy noise, and snapped her mouth closed so quick her molars clacked. Lips pressed in a thin line, Dís blinked at his hand and then carefully lifted her chin to meet his gaze with moist eyes.

“I’ve been going on, haven’t I?” She rubbed her temples then dropped her hands in her lap to pick at her thumbnail and shook her head, looking small and defeated. “Sorry.”

“Mum,” Fíli paused to collect his thoughts through the fog of inverted disappointment, imploring, “I’m _so sorry_.”

At that, Dís’ head shot up, face awash with surprise.

Fíli hurried to explain, “There’s so much to do and I’ve been walking around with my head stuck up my arse. I never bothered to ask where I could help—” Dís was about to speak, to reassure him, he recognized, but he barrelled on with a squeeze to her knee, “I could’ve done more than orange chains, mum. I’ll do better.” The last was said quietly, filled with promise and self-reprimand.

“You’ll—? _Oh_ Fíli,” Dís turned into him, arms banding around Fíli’s neck to tug him into a fierce hug. “God, you’ve always been so damn _good_.” The stress in her voice which made that sound like a bad thing was belied by her rocking him gently sideways and back twice before she released him.

Fíli wasn’t sure how to respond beyond a very intelligent, “Uh—”

“Oh, pet,” Dís brought a hand up to cup the curve of Fíli’s scruffy jaw, “It’s wonderful. Truly. I’m just having trouble getting my head on right today.”

After his and Kíli’s conduct in the stables, Fíli could imagine why.

Dís’ lines shallowed and the warmth in her eyes returned. Although there remained a tautness in her joints, Dís seemed less weighted in the wake of Fíli’s promise and for that he was grateful that he’d managed to open his eyes. He mushed, heart swelling and stomach clenching pleasantly as he received one of Dís’ patented, soft Mother Bear looks.

“You’d best get yourself cleaned up then. We can talk again when you come down for lunch, yeah?” She said, patted his cheek then pushed herself off the edge of the bed.

Fíli accompanied her to the door, “Yeah.” 

Dís sucked in and puffed out, nodded as if to reaffirm a decision that she kept to herself, and disappeared down the hall with a final tender glance at Fíli. There was a heavy thunk from somewhere downstairs just as Fíli moved back into his room, toward the white-washed Windsorback in the corner where his beanbag chair used to lounge. Nothing alerting followed the noise and so Fíli went about collecting his towel from where he’d left it on the seat the day before.

Aside from his once-used towel were another two fresh ones, a handtowel and facecloth all in burnt orange and all neatly folded. Dís had also put in a fat basket beside the chair a new set of winter themed garb. Fíli had avoided it yesterday but, feeling the aftershocks of guilt and the newer twinges of motherly affection, thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to sport the knitted navy blue jumper, at the very least.

Fíli snorted fondly, thought how, in their earlier years, Kíli would have accused Fíli of being a suck-up. He dismissed the thought immediately, sad all of a sudden and not without reason.

He concentrated on the basket, dug into the goodies Dís had piled in it. Beneath the sweater was revealed a new pair of fleece pajamas – navy blue plaid bottoms, to match the jumper, and a simple white, crewneck top – and a set of—

“She can’t possibly think I’d wear these.” Fíli balked.

He would. He would absolutely wear them because Dís had bought them for him – was likely eager for him to wear them on Christmas Day – and that was adorable, she was adorable, the massive, reindeer-shaped slippers were … erm … adorable.

Aw, Christ, the noses lit up.

Where did she find those things?

Shoving everything save the jumper - which he spread over the back of the chair - into the basket, Fíli stood and stepped to the bed where he tossed his towel in order to strip down to his boxers unhindered. He kicked his jeans aside, ruined by skids of hopefully only dirt, and yanked his sweater and t-shirt off in one go, gathering everything in a bundle which he dropped into the wicker hamper beside the dresser.

He took the towel and left his room, shutting the door behind him and sauntering down the hall. He was lost in his head, tangled up and busy, trying to cram everything into boxes for him to tackle later, after a nice, hot shower sorted out both his aching muscles and restless soul.

Baby steps, he told himself. One thing at a time.

As soon as he’d swung the bathroom door open, Fíli skidded to a stop.

“Oh shit, I’m sorry.”

Kíli had lurched upright from where he’d been hunched over the running sink, cheeks chipmunk round, toothbrush stuck out the side of his mouth and lips white with toothpaste foam. His eyes bulged wide for a tick before easing into something considering as Fíli stammered through his apology.

Kíli was … more than half naked, Fíli’s brain supplied dumbly, lagged seconds behind the electrical impulses his eyeballs transmitted. Kíli was stood proudly, unashamed, broad chest out and shoulders back and why the hell _would_ anyone be ashamed, looking like that? Though leaner than Fíli, he was all corded, beefy arms and sturdy legs, an attractive blend of blocky and curved. He'd cut his hair into floppy curls, swept back in the shape his hat had impressed. What hair he'd lost on top was made for by the carpet of dark hair that served to emphasize how much of a man Kíli had grown into. Kíli had always been furry, however, distance and time had faded the picture Fíli had carried of Kíli in the back of his mind. 

Fíli gulped, gaze unintentionally zipping to and following the hair where it thickened into a trail from Kíli’s bellybutton, down into his low-placed boxer-briefs. They did very little to conceal the fat bulge of Kíli’s cock within. And, holy fuck, Fíli needed to leave before the transmissions from his retinas started travelling in the wrong direction.

Fíli pried his gaze from Kíli’s crotch, scrambled back, cleared his throat, fumbled over his words, “I’ll, ahem, uhm, use the other one,” the ensuite off their parents’ bedroom, “Shit.”

He heard Kíli spit into the sink and turn off the tap, foot kicked out to bar the door from swaying closed. Kíli’s voice was laced with the barest hint of amusement when he called, “I’m almost done.”

“No, that’s fine,” Fíli insisted and promptly veered around, took two steps before he realized his mistake, “It’s this way, sorry,” reoriented himself and walked with more dignity than he had in him.

“Fíli, wait.”

Fíli halted immediately, although he didn’t have the courage to turn more than his head back.

“I,” Fíli saw Kíli was leaned against the doorframe, smacked it with one hand as if summoning the nerve to say what he said next, “We should go for a ride.” His brown eyes were on the carpet when he spoke.

Fíli couldn’t believe his ears, “What?”

Slowly, he crept around until he was partway facing Kíli, movements controlled because he was afraid Kíli would rescind his offer if Fíli did anything to startle him.

“A ride.” Kíli repeated and cast a shuttered glance at Fíli. “I—never mind.”

“No!” Fíli cried, “I mean yes, of course I mean yes.” He inhaled, held it for a second and released, then tried again with less hysteria, “Yes, I’d really like that.”

“Alright. Meet me at the stables in twenty?”

Fíli was too nervous to grin, though he tried, an awkward twitch of the lips, and whether they went up, down, or to the sides, he wasn’t sure.

“I can do that.”

Kíli huffed a whisper of a chuckle, tapped the doorframe with his fist and nodded before slinking back into the bathroom.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> frens, _thank you_ , so so much, to those who commented in the last chapter; it helps _tremendously_. although i challenged myself to finish this WIP (encouraged in no small part by [Linane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linane) who planted the seed), knowing that there is a _group_ of you soldiering through this with me helps keep the motivation and enthusiasm up, thereby ensuring i really consider the quality of what i'm uploading. while i know i can write something decent when i'm not as invested, it doesn't feel nearly as good as sharing something i am truly proud of and, with the support you've shown, i'm confident that i can deliver my best!
> 
> you guys are awesome 😁🤗

Kíli didn’t know why he did it. Except that of course he did. Fíli had barged in wearing nothing but a pair of sinfully tight boxers that _had. to. be_ a size too small because who even looks that good in their underpants outside of porn!? Kíli was proud that he hadn’t done a spit-take in Fíli’s frustratingly handsome face or choked at the spectacle that was Fíli’s boulderous arms and the subtle meat around his hips, bulged over the elastic waistband of his boxers. The swells of Fíli’s hard pecs, the fuzziness of his whole front that Kíli lecherously recalled smooshing his face into, greedy and safe, whenever they’d been alone together—

The man had no right – _none!_ – to go around being that attractive when he’d left such a black stain on Kíli’s soul five years previous. Who did Fíli think he was!? Strutting away, the perfectly round globes of his arse bouncing a come-hither beat matched by Kíli pulse.

Kíli bit his knuckle – naturally, the one he’d rawed against Fíli’s chip-diamonds jaw – aching to scrub anything sexual as it pertained to Fíli out of his hindbrain before it howled into the driver’s seat.

Fíli had always had that effect on him, transfigured his knees to pudding and made Kíli thirst for Fíli’s touch. However, beneath the crust of want was swirling chaos. Too many emotions battled for dominance and Kíli wasn’t sure there could be a winner. He was angry at the past, slighted by and jealous of the present, unsure about the future.

Fíli had changed, not just in body – and damn, that body had Kíli panting like a teenage boy over his first playboy centerfold – but in the way Fíli carried himself. Five years was enough time to become a different person twice over and it was obvious Fíli had evolved. Without Kíli. That truth was a gnarled, thorny sting clenched around Kíli’s heart and he wasn’t sure he was capable of meeting Fíli halfway and moving forward in a civil, receptive manner. Forward to where, Kíli couldn’t possibly fathom, but he knew hunkering down in his misery and resentment wouldn’t serve him well in the long term.

It had to be confronted.

And so, a ride it was.

Although a small, nagging part of Kíli was absolutely not comfortable following his impulsive plan, he forced himself to push through. Erebor was more his than Fíli's by then; it was _his turf_ , so to speak, and he wouldn't be rankled on _his turf_ \- God, he hated thinking in those terms but what else was he supposed to do? Putting the anger and betrayal aside, it was as if Kíli had to all-of-a-sudden entertain someone he'd only seen around the shops; a person one waved to and exchanged pleasantries with and never ever invited to a Friday with the lads because there were boundaries in outlying aquaintanceships one did. not. touch. 

That Fíli would be placed in the same category as Daryl Martin from the DIY in Sornsby twisted Kíli's stomach into a balloon poodle but those were the facts. 

Sponging himself as clean as he cared to, Kíli hurried back to his room and shuffled into a pair of dark jeans, chaffed slightly in the thighs, and a light, umber-colored sweater that Tauriel insisted brought out his eyes. Not that he was trying to impress anyone. He wasn’t.

 _He wasn’t_.

And if he slipped on his fur-lined leather coat, black and supple, who was going to tell Fíli it was Kíli’s smartest item that he only wore for nights out on the pull.

He trampled downstairs, heard the shower start in the bathroom on his way past, and breezed into the kitchen for a couple of beers to have handy if things got too tense. Thorin and Dís were at the pair of armchairs by the woodstove, Dís hovering over Thorin who was wrapped in a woolly, tartan blanket, holding a mug of steaming tea. Kíli could taste the whiskey from where he stood at the fridge.

He raised an eyebrow in Thorin’s direction and was met with saucer-big eyes, Thorin’s face paling a few shades when their gazes met, as if Kíli were a ghost. Kíli whipped his head around but couldn't spot Grandad anywhere. He slipped the bottles into each of the deep coat pockets and straightened, face pinching in concern while Dís fussed over Thorin. Thorin sputtered unintelligibly, Dís scoffed and raised to her full height – not that there was much of it, all five-foot-nothing of her. She scratched the side of her head and stared at Thorin, her expression screaming _what the hell am I supposed to do with you?_

A tug in Kíli’s conscience coaxed him to offer his help, “Everything alright, mum?”

“Yes,” She said absently. Dís blew a bewildered raspberry and twisted her upper body in Kíli’s direction. “Going somewhere?” She noticed.

“Uhm … yeah. Yeah. Going for a ride.”

Her pursed lips and steady eyes asked what exactly Kíli was up to, so he elaborated.

“I—Fíli and I,” He corrected, coughed behind a curled hand that he then used to rub the back of his neck, “We’re going. Together. For a ride.”

Dís lit up like a firework, “Really?”

Kíli chuckled stiffly, spread his arms and dropped them again, _what do you want me to say_ , “Yep.”

“Kíli, that’s wonderful!”

Thorin gagged on his tea.

Dís swept slitted, befuddled eyes at him. When she turned back to Kíli, her face was clear and bright, “I’m so glad you two are—”

“Gotta go!” Kíli called over his shoulder, having booked it toward the door the instant her tone hinted at an overindulgent Mum Speech.

Kíli was self-aware enough to know that if she praised him for doing something as mature as temporarily setting aside his emotional hangups, he was going to stubbornly make a sharp U-turn and gun it back to umbrage and petulance, stewing in his room until the blunt force of his rage built in his fists again.

“I love you!” Dís’ laughter rang out, propelling Kíli to the foyer where his boots and winter accessories were in the same disarray he’d left them in when they’d come in from the stables not even an hour before.

He jumped, heart in his throat, when he caught Nightmare Santa’s jarring, burlap mug in the window, the loose stiches of its demon smile adding to the blood-chilling eeriness (“ _God, we’ve got to do something_.” He quivered).

The pipes rattled as the shower was turned off. Kíli tipped his head to the ceiling, worried his tender bottom lip, and prayed that he’d done the right thing inviting Fíli for a ride. Although, he supposed, should their conversation boil into an argument, he could just gallop into the afternoon and abandon Fíli to the trail. He wasn’t above pettiness when the occasion called for it.

Hat securely pulled over his ears, he crouched down to rummage through his designated storage basket beneath the bench. It took him some effort to find his riding gloves, buried at the bottom, as well as a second pair for Fíli since Fíli's were packed away in one of the upstairs closets. Kíli paused to listen to Fíli’s padded footsteps carrying him back to his bedroom. Fíli, in a towel, slung low on his hand-grabby hips, and nothing else. Upon the click of Fíli’s door closing, Kíli’s brain burst into a reel of oft-visited – though he’d vehemently deny it – fantasies superimposed with the mouthwatering picture Fíli had made during their brief encounter upstairs. 

"Pull yourself together, man." Kíli scolded in a low growl. 

He marshalled himself through the door before he did something mad like attack Fíli with a session of raunchy, violent hate-sex. Thankfully, the cold, crisp air did a marvelous job of dampening his libido – a second, accidental glimpse of Nightmare Santa in the corner of his eye took care of the rest – so, off he went, chewing his way up to the stables over whether or not he’d made a terrible mistake.

About the ride or the possibly cathartic hate-sex, Kíli adamantly refused to examine.


	19. Chapter 19

The crafty thing about Time was that it had a means of altering events. The more paces it put between a person and what occurred, the more the particulars skewed. They weren’t drastic changes, the hard points resolute, but the human brain was capable of incredible things and, with Time’s assistance, it fiddled and played with a person’s memory. It removed whole portions it deemed unnecessary, amplified others, added bitty pinches to walloping scoops of abstraction, until the memory itself was morphed into a caricature of what had really been.

The craftiest detail was that a person _couldn’t_ _know_ , believing every component of their memory machine was well-oiled and every memory accurate, until it was – as was usually the case – contradicted.

Between one sock and the next, Fíli _thought_ he remembered exactly why he’d left Erebor. Not merely the compelling emotional abrasion but the _reasons_ – a keen determination to be his own person, not inheritor of Erebor and all its labors; a promising job offer, a successful interview… The all-encompassing need to protect Kíli, even from himself.

Contemplation cinched his face on the last point where it tacked itself on the end, sneaky and covert.

Everyone had assumed – or Fíli _assumed_ they’d assumed – that he’d stormed off because of the fight with Kíli. The opportunity to work in the city, do his own thing for a bit, had been a happy coincidence to their minds. It wasn’t voiced, although Fíli had sensed it behind everyone’s easy acceptance when he’d announced he’d been hired, that Fíli would eventually come to his senses and take up his father’s mantle; would oversee Erebor and maintain everything the Durin ancestors had built from nothing.

Erebor was more than sleigh rides and horse holidays. It was a fundamental dairy farm with over 180 cows, the byres at the base of the declivity to the west of the stables. How it was being managed without Vóli – how it _would be managed_ without Vóli, Fíli’s heart plummeted – was probably at Dáin's discretion. (Dáin was Vóli’s cousin and a majority shareholder in the business. A boisterous fellow with a raucous laugh and an affinity for chunky rings, Stetsons, and three-piece suits.)

Fíli had never aspired to own and operate a dairy farm, never mind one just below the industrial scale. Which had been the foremost reason why, despite his loved ones’ delusions that he’d suddenly find he’d never want anything more, he’d remade himself as a city flyboy.

Fíli squeezed his head through the neckhole of the navy blue jumper, emerging staticky and tousled. Quickly checking his phone, he saw he didn’t have time to preen – a hat would have to suffice, though certainly not the one with the antlers attached which he’d found among Dís’ surprises. Not that he’d be embarrassed, far from it; he simply wanted to keep things neutral between he and Kíli while they were navigating rough terrain. Benign and inoffensive was his mantra until Fíli knew where he stood with Kíli.

Kíli, who had punched him. Kíli, who had so freely wanted him and then hated him the instant Fíli had had to disentangle himself. 

Fíli had had a good reason, the best, in fact, despite it being cloudy when he tried to summon it. He rummaged around his mind, down the winding tunnels of accusation and betrayal, through the windows of first dates and nervous handjobs. As he was about to give up, he was blindsided, t-boned by a bullet-train flash of memory that he hadn’t been aware he’d repressed. Perhaps Kíli’s knock to the head was to blame for loosening it.

He collapsed onto the end of his bed, blank eyes fixed on the wall ahead, as the beast roared to life in his mind. His palms felt clammy and his teeth hurt, and he wanted so badly to turn away, but he couldn’t because it had laid its eggs and they were hatching inside him, a menacing kaleidoscope exploding his amygdala, each frame of memory he’d refused to acknowledge to the point where Fíli had forgotten they existed unfurling like a corpse flower. 

People had started talking, gossip and hearsay at first though it had become true later, and Fíli had done what he’d had to do. He wasn’t sure what would’ve happened had he had to stay; if there hadn’t been a position for him to fill at one of the country’s top advertising firms far away from Erebor. What Fíli was certain of was that he would’ve gone to the moon if it had meant doing the right thing for Kíli.

Kíli hadn’t been worried, blissfully ignorant and unburdened by expectation, and he _hadn’t listened_ , had ignored Fíli’s concerns – “ _People see us and they see brothers. We’re_ brothers _. Eventually this’ll have to end—_ ” – had ignored how fucking _scared to death_ Fíli had been that there had been things out there with teeth that had wanted to tear them apart. He’d needed reassurance, a rational plan, and when Kíli hadn’t provided him with either Fíli had—

Fíli had …

… run away.

Well, shit.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> voilà! can you believe it? 20 chapters! so, i thought, in order to celebrate, i'd give you guys some softcore po—

The door was wide open when Kíli reached the stables, the sleigh parked and the horses unhitched, returned to their box stalls. Bofur had Triscuit crosstied at the end of the aisle, untacked, and was rubbing her down when Kíli entered, beer bottles clinking against some loose change in both pockets that he’d forgotten about. 

“Mornin’,” Bofur greeted, voice scratchy, as if he’d spent the night screaming.

Which could only mean, “What were _you_ doing out on a Tuesday?” Kíli chuckled as he grabbed the bridle he intended to use and moved to unhook the latch on the second stall up on the left.

The black-as-pitch Dales pony, Daisy, whickered but otherwise didn’t acknowledge him as he entered, allowed him to put his hand on her flank and nudge her head away from the pile of Timothy hay she munched on. He maneuvered the bit into her mouth and the halter over her head, worked deftly to fasten the straps where they needed to be, comfortable and secure.

“Aye, had to celebrate Fíli’s coming back right.” Bofur’s fond grin fell from his face as soon as he’d said the words, eyes going wide and apologetic. “Sorry,” He said, automatic, the remorse faint, though no less sincere, for all the times Bofur had had to excuse himself in the past.

Kíli’s heart twinged.

It was fine and well when everyone admitted they’d heard from Fíli – received stupid memes or links to YouTube videos Fíli thought were amusing enough to share – but to find out that others were still … close, still present in Fíli’s life to the degree that they’d spent a night drinking and, if Bofur’s voice was any clue, belting out 80s ballads like they’d never been apart … it cut to the bone. Kíli kept his back to Bofur, unwilling to inflict his miserable expression when it wasn’t Bofur’s fault that Kíli was jealous.

Because he was. Jealous.

Riotously, fiendishly jealous and more than a little bit heartbroken. The way anyone would get when they heard how well a loved one doing without them. It was a tangle of curiosity, betrayal and longing; a desire to reinsert oneself into their lives and experience them newly and with appreciation better than anyone else could possibly hope to. Accompanied by the stark realization that that wasn't always possible.

Bofur cleared his throat awkwardly and asked, “Going for a ride then?” when Kíli didn’t speak for some strained minutes.

“Yeah. With Fíli actually.”

“Oh well that’s grand!” Bofur’s tone perked up exponentially.

Kíli stroked Daisy’s back, gripped the cheek piece and led her into the aisle. She was a large, winsome creature, 14.2 hands of power, yet able to smoothly turn in the space allotted between the rows of box stalls. Kíli crosstied her with her rump to Triscuit. Didn’t want them to have a conversation while Kíli fixed her saddle.

“Yeah,” He agreed wistfully, “Just grand.”

Suddenly, Bofur was right behind him, the hand he placed on Kíli’s shoulder spooking Kíli into a short jump. Bofur hummed a laugh and squeezed through Kíli’s coat.

“Come on, lad,” He said, “You’re trying. That’s what counts.”

“It feels weird.” Kíli confessed.

He dropped his arms to his side from where they’d been fiddling with things that didn’t need to be fiddled with. Pushing forward with his chore, Kíli shrugged off Bofur’s hand, not meanly, simply to continue tacking Daisy, and walked down the long length of the aisle. He ducked under the ties holding Triscuit – rubbed down and mellow, nose dipping toward the ground as she drifted into a doze – and continued to the end where the saddles were stored.

“I imagine it does.” Bofur nodded as he watched Kíli haul his saddle of choice – a treed, matte black English leather GP that Kíli had received from Vóli for his 16th – back down the aisle.

The saddle pad that matched was already draped over Daisy’s back, courtesy of Bofur who wandered to Daisy’s opposite side so he could help fasten the saddle in place. They worked in silence, both focused on the job until it was done.

Kíli squirmed with so much fighting to burst out of him and spoke as soon as his attention could be diverted. “It’s—I don’t know what it is. I feel like I want to punch him in the throat one second and the next, I want to hear about everything he’s been doing, how he is, what’s he like now, you know?”

If Bofur didn’t, he was about to.

The question was, of course, rhetorical and Kíli steamed ahead, “He goes off, ignores me for five years like a stain he couldn’t get out of a shirt, so he shoved it to the back of his closet! I’m a dirty shirt, Bofur!”

Bofur made to retort but was interrupted immediately.

“And then he comes back and, what, expects me to be fine with it? Because it’s the holidays and everyone is fucking love and good cheer? Well I’m not!”

“You don’t say,” Bofur muttered to himself as Kíli continued.

“I don’t know how to act, which is awful.” Kíli paced back and forth, arms flinging, and eyebrows furrowed somewhere between resentment and sorrow. “Part of me doesn’t want to know how he is. Frankly, he doesn’t deserve my interest.”

At that stage, Bofur was talking to himself, “'Course not.”

“He _certainly_ doesn’t deserve to know how I’m doing!” And then, rather abruptly, Kíli deflated and tipped back onto the post between stalls, hands shoved in his coat pockets, curled around warming beer bottles, and eyes wavering on the ground. Quietly, he said, “What if he’s changed so much, he isn’t Fíli anymore?”

The truth was hard for Kíli to confront. He didn’t want to know anything about Fíli’s new, extravagant city life because he hadn’t been there to experience, in real-time, all the steps Fíli took to get to where he was. Fíli was an entirely new person and Kíli was … Kíli. He wanted to preserve the Fíli he’d once had, the one who’d loved Kíli, who’d wanted Kíli, no matter how furious Kíli was at that Fíli.

To put it mildly, Kíli was on the verge of an aneurysm, he was so scared of being alone with Fíli, for (at the very least) an hour, without any buffers.

“Lad,” Bofur respectfully kept out of Kíli’s personal space, leaned his shoulder on the post on the other side of the stall Kíli was against. His face was soft, and kind and his eyes were dewy and warm, if a shade bloodshot. His arms folded across his chest and one foot crossed over the other with the tip of his mucky workboot in the dirt, “You won’t know ‘til you talk to him, will ye?”

No, Kíli wouldn’t know. But he also wasn’t sure he wanted to. It was a Schrodinger’s Cat conundrum and Kíli hated paradoxes as much as he hated anything stressful before he’d had lunch.

There were crunchy footsteps in the snow to herald Fíli’s entrance to the stables when he arrived just at the tail of Bofur's question. Kíli’s heart made a valiant effort to escape through his throat at the sight of him, daylight billowing like a corona around Fíli as he stood in the doorway. His blond hair was adorably curled at the bottom of the blue beanie he had pulled over the tips of his ears. The color made his eyes shine brighter, the git.

He was dressed appropriately for riding, warm boots and a sturdy coat that might’ve been too smart for the country but would keep Fíli warm, nonetheless. Fíli smiled or was trying to; it was a complicated series of twitches, up and down and across his mouth, that flashed his dimples at different times, a Morse code Kíli might have been able to translate in a different life.

Good, he was as off-balance as Kíli felt. At least they had _that_ in common.

Bofur smiled good-naturedly and Kíli wanted to kick something.

“Still remember what to do?”

Fíli snorted, “Ha! I could have amnesia and still put a saddle on a horse!”

Kíli’s stomach twisted as Fíli returned Bofur’s humor, casual and calm as you please. 

Bofur wiggled his brows and winked, “We’ll see about that, won’t we?” and set about lending Fíli a hand in getting Bungle, another glossy, black Dales, ready for riding.

“I guess we will,” Kíli uttered to himself, pulling in a steadying breath that neither Fíli nor Bofur noticed.

If there was ever a time to start praying, Kíli decided it was then and sent up a rapid-fire list, mental bullhorn on its highest volume, begging whoever might hear him to ensure his temper wouldn’t flare and he and Fíli would have, at the bare minimum, a genial time. 

And if they didn't, Kíli still had a standing reservation for Tauriel's basement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> —rn 😵 * _flattened to the ground from stampede/wheezes_ * which you can find over [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28682868)...


	21. Chapter 21

Erebor was enormous, its property sprawled largely in three directions with an additional five hectares of pasture across the road from the farmstead. Two trails were given for sleigh rides in the winter, forked from the main trail that veered right off the road running along the side of the house from the stables. One, reserved for the evening, made a circuit around the ruins which had been brushed in order to pitch a photogenic winter scene – a canopy of twinkle lights, decorated spruces, assorted carved animals with wine-colored, jingle-bell bows (on behalf of Thorin), arranged to seem as though they were grazing peacefully. Folks would disembark to take pictures and explore.

The other trail, used in the mornings and early afternoons, brought sleigh-goers around the small lake where Bombur and his wife, Bernadette, set up a kiosk festooned in garland and tinsel. Bernadette had managed the kiosk alone since Bombur had gone home with the flu some weeks before and she continued to do so. The kiosk offered homemade hot chocolate for the children and personalized toddies for their parents as well as a little assortment of pastries and fudge.

Near the frozen lake were benches, two steel fire pits with Adirondack chairs in a circle around them and an updated pair of outhouses, kept stocked by Bernadette. Sleigh-goers were encouraged to bring their skates and enjoy the ice for however long they wished. The lakeside sleigh rides were scheduled on the hour, every hour, from noon to five, with two on the half-hour at two-thirty and three-thirty, so sleigh-goers could hop back on and catch a ride back when Bofur delivered the next group.

Normally, in the lead-up to the Christmas Eve dance, Kíli worked the sleigh rides along with Bofur and Nori who both alternated days or took off altogether to help Dís in the barn. Oftentimes, Bifur – Bofur and Bombur’s cousin, a grizzly man whose Northern accent was so rough hardly anyone could ever understand him – would be called to step in and alleviate some of the stress as well. He was always happy to oblige (Bofur assured because, _that wasn’t the Queen’s English, mate, what the hell?_ ) and was likely the one to replace Kíli that day while he was occupied with concentrating too hard on being casual in the presence of a man who’d broken his heart.

Easy-peasy.

Kíli had led them leftways out of the stables, to the private trail which cut behind the house, across the meadow and into the woods. There was a bend in the trail that looped back to an overlook above the broad stretch of wintered valley the herd grazed in. At least, if there was no conversation, there’d be something to look at while they drank the beer Kíli had brought along. 

The first ten minutes of their ride was exactly as awkward as Kíli had predicted. Fíli was behind, Bungle beneath him itching to move faster but Fíli, to Kíli’s surprise, kept Bungle well in hand. Although Fíli was a little stiff, he appeared comfortable in the saddle, body swaying into Bungle’s motion as if Fíli still rode every day. Seeing him there, on a horse, surrounded by the trees they’d climbed as children, in the woods where they’d grown up, stirred a frenzy of mixed emotions in Kíli.

Mostly, Kíli wanted to know everything but also nothing about Fíli’s life which made the task of instigating conversation rather impossible. He didn’t know where to start. Or _how_ , for that matter. Kíli had imagined talking to Fíli about all sorts of things over the years since Fíli had left. Anything and everything had sprung to mind when he’d been alone in his bed, ruminating on what Fíli might have been doing in that same moment. Kíli, while loathe to admit it, had regularly caught himself yearning to share things with Fíli. Weird, mundane, household bullshit about having fixed the plumbing in the kitchen only to have had the pipe spit at him in defiance. He’d almost gone flying across the kitchen from the force of the spray.

Grandad literally _had_ gone flying across the kitchen.

That was what one got when one believed oneself more capable than a twenty-something while sitting at the rickety age of Tutankhamun’s mummy.

Kíli went through the mental checklist of What Not to Say to someone who had made themselves estranged. Reverted to acquaintances as they were, Kíli was uncertain of how to proceed. A lot of the topics he was half-curious about he deemed too intimate. Everything that came to mind had the potential for disaster where Kíli's heart was concerned; nothing was safe. But _were they_ too intimate? Fíli had had his cock up Kíli’s arse. Now, _that_ was intimate. And Kíli felt a string of that former intimacy still connected them, albeit obscure. He supposed it would always be there since sex had the effect of erecting emotional bridges, but (Kíli acquiesced) it didn’t allow for questions such as, “Did you love me or was it hormones?” or "Has there been anyone else?" to be asked. Despite the sick, twisted desire to demand the information. 

Additionally, he didn't want to have to answer those questions himself which he would have to out of a sense of fairness. He didn't want Fíli to know anything about his life as it had unfolded. Again, while also eager to boast about all the names he'd accumulated in his metaphorical Little Black Book because he hoped to incite some kind of guilt or jealousy in Fíli as all the relationships Kíli had imagined Fíli had been in had incited in him. Ruthlessly, against rational judgement, Kíli was bent to hear Fíli declare anyone he'd been with lacking, that he'd made a mistake, that Kíli was the best he'd ever had and he'd been stupid to let Kíli slip away. Which, Kíli was aware, wasn't how normal people went about making civil conversation.

Kíli was tempted to pull a beer out and drain it on the spot, the pressure of contradicting emotions and thoughts exhausting. 

For another ten minutes, Kíli’s mind raged on, argued with itself, waged civil war over what was and what wasn’t a safe subject for small talk – he would _not_ be someone who talked about the weather; he wanted Fíli to talk about himself (as much as he didn’t) and, Jesus, honestly, did it have to be so confusing!? He was going to rip his hair out!

Kíli stole a glance back at Fíli and was irritated to find he looked calm as could be, soaking in the serene, snow-covered nature around them, a dim smile on his lips and his eyes hooded and relaxed. Bastard. Feeling particularly petty and a lot spiteful, Kíli resolved to present himself as equally as well-adjusted and impervious (fiercely ignoring the way he'd already reacted earlier). He was going to do and say the right thing from this point forward, so help him God.

At last, the perfect icebreaker manifested on the tip of his tongue, simple and neutral and friendly. Fíli would be free to share however much he liked, no pressure whatsoever, and Kíli was unlikely to feel anything more than indifference toward anything Fíli might possibly respond with. Kíli’s mouth opened, began molding the syllables, tongue and teeth joining—

“Been getting your prick wet these days?”

—and that was outrageously, categorically, heinously **not** **it** , what the shit!?


	22. Chapter 22

Fíli was, by no means, _calm as could be_. He’d had to watch Kíli (or, more precisely, Kíli’s _arse_ ) mount Daisy, the bunch and release of Kíli’s body as he’d stepped into the stirrup and hauled himself into the saddle. Kíli had been a performance of fluid motions and competency on Daisy’s back when he’d exchanged the outline of their trip to Bofur, meanwhile leading Daisy in a lazy circle as she’d been eager to get a move on. Kíli had yet to share a genuine smile with Fíli as Kíli had with Bofur, Fíli noted, a serrated pang of guilt-riddled sadness gnawing his stomach.

Fíli couldn’t begrudge him. He’d faced what he’d done every day since he’d arrived in the city. Cooped up in a spacious two-bedroom that he’d purposefully kept sparsely furnished and plain in an act of contrition, coinhabited by the repentant spirit of his sins. There was a hole inside him, an integral space Kíli had occupied since they’d been five years old, and Fíli deserved no less than to suffer with it. Nothing fit, that Kíli-shaped hole unable to be filled – believe him, Fíli had tried – and when something did, it was sand in an hourglass, doomed to end.

His earlier epiphany had capsized him. Fíli had had approximately ten seconds to shove the truth back into the grimy, cobwebbed filing cabinet where he’d repressed it at the back of his mind before he’d set out to the stables. In retrospect, ten seconds had not been an adequate amount of time to pull himself together. Just his luck that the enormity of said truth’s dimensions was then leaking from its triple-padlocked drawer and was wreaking merry havoc all over his thoughts while he existed within arm’s length of the object said truth orbited.

His conscience was a muddle of useless grawlixes and spurls, flung everywhichway, to the busy strings of Flight of the Bumblebee. Comets of justifiable reason burning up in an atmosphere of remorse and anxiety.

Fíli was tempted to call a priest.

It took a humongous amount of self-control not to leap onto Kíli’s horse and vomit neurotic apologies at him in the hope that Kíli would more than look at him with tolerance and thinly veiled disdain. There would never be a home without Kíli, Fíli realized, struck by a piece of debris that survived entry, and Fíli didn’t ~~want~~ deserve to make one unless he was forgiven. 

In order to remain steadfast, Fíli forced his gaze to their surroundings. Until they reached the overlook he guessed Kíli was leading them to, it wasn’t the right moment to drop apologies like anvils. If Kíli didn’t fall off his horse under the weight of them, Fíli sure as hell would.

The bite in the air helped somewhat to stay Fíli’s focus, but the silence afforded him minutes inside his head that felt like eons for all the thoughts his brain conjured. They were driving him closer to doing or saying something stupid just to illicit a reaction, an acknowledgement from Kíli of Fíli’s _thereness_. Anything to divert his attention away from the cartoon scribbles furiously gnatting around his cerebrum. 

Or perhaps Fíli didn’t deserve that either.

For an immediate distraction, Fíli trawled his attention to their surroundings. The smell of imminent snowfall and horse-warmth soothed him enough to ease further into Bungle’s motions beneath him and he was able to loosen some tension on the reins. They followed the trail behind the meadow, the overspread snow sparkling and untouched but for a few hare prints, and up the gradual incline into the woods.

Nostalgia quieted the chaos temporarily, granted Fíli reprieve while he leaned into the moment. On Bungle’s back, he was reminded of all the days and nights he’d spent in the saddle, the comfort it had awarded him. Some boys blasted rebellious music; some stole their parents’ beers. Fíli had ridden. There was nothing more exhilarating than flying across a wide-open range, whipping wind cooling the heat of emotion as his horse galloped, full tilt, away from the source of his angst.

Recently, Fíli practiced sparring any excess emotion out at the boxing club around the corner from his flat.

Idly, Fíli wondered if Kíli still went for hikes whenever his temper got to be too much for his own head. Punching his frustration into walls or faces was clearly still a response Kíli indulged, though Fíli had sensed when Kíli had hit him that Kíli wasn’t as untamed and raving as he’d been when they’d been younger. There’d been more control behind his knuckles – that knowledge hadn’t cushioned the blow, emotional or otherwise, since it indicated that Kíli had been sitting on that act of violence for awhile.

Ahead of him, Kíli was bobbing on Daisy’s back, one hand rested on his thigh, the other holding the reins, head tipped minutely to one side as if he were deep in thought. Fíli seized the opportunity to look his fill of Kíli, an arrangement of square shoulders, a wide back, tapered waist, and sculpted legs. Fíli didn’t stop his mind from recalling how it had felt to be pressed against the hard ridges and plains of Kíli’s form as it writhed below him – not in the greatest of circumstances, Fíli’s inner voice reminded him.

Kíli was different yet the same, his shapes changed by age, but he was no less devastating. And he’d packaged himself in jeans he must have needed a shoehorn to get into and a sexy black leather jacket that had Fíli salivating—Fíli diced that image into a thousand pieces and blended it to smithereens when Bungle puffed his notice of Fíli’s spike in mood.

Patting the side of Bungle’s large neck, Fíli returned to the scenery like the decent and respectable man he was.

Just as the silence began to itch Fíli’s nerves again, Kíli turned in his saddle, upper body twisted toward Fíli. Fíli jerked his chin, _what is it?_ , and relaxed his face, watched Kíli’s expression twist from one thing to another as if being managed by a corkscrew. Brown eyes ticked about in the distance over Fíli’s shoulder before they snapped and caught Fíli’s gaze.

“Is everythi—”

“Been getting your prick wet these days?”

Kíli’s tone was accusing and judgmental and a slap to the face because, while Fíli had carried his cross for half a decade, he _was_ human, had, at various instances, tried to move forward and find a semblance of happiness. So, yes, he’d been with other people – men and women alike; older, younger, some who’d lasted past the standard awkward-morning-after. Alarms were blaring, sirens flashing, little Admiral Ackbars in hardhats and reflective vests screaming and waving their arms, _it’s a trap!_

He pulled Bungle to a stop as Kíli did the same with Daisy. Fíli’s mouth hinged open and closed like a ventriloquist’s dummy thrice before he was able to come up with an appropriate answer, “I don’t know how to answer that.”

After a pending number of seconds, Kíli cleared his throat and glanced away, appearing admonished, his shoulders up to his ears and chin tucked into his collar.

“Do you want me to answ—?”

Kíli interrupted, skating a frantic, big-eyed look at Fíli, “No!” and that should’ve been a relief except that it really, _really_ wasn’t as Fíli’s mind had pounced on the yarnball notion of sex and Kíli and _other people_ and was now unravelling it like an exuberant kitten. Fíli gulped, pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth to plug the interrogation as it rushed up his esophagus from his fantasy-ill, threshing stomach.

“Okay.”

“Okay.” Kíli agreed immediately and returned to a front-facing position in his saddle. He heeled Daisy into a walk, accompanied by a tug of the reins, and Fíli supposed the conversation – if one could call it that – was over.

“Are you seeing anyone?” Fíli mustered the nerve to venture a minute later, the subject latched on and adamant to be addressed.

Kíli huffed a cloud and spared Fíli a brief look back, “I don’t really want to get into it.”

Whatever _it_ was, it lanced through Fíli’s heart, a fiery poker cauterizing the flesh as it drove in. “Oh.”

“Let’s talk about something else.”

Halfhearted, hollow teasing, “You brought it up.”

“And now I’m putting it down.”

“Fine.”

“Grand.”

The silence was back, unimpressed and _loud_ , and Fíli had never been so desperate for a drink in all his life. He wanted to saw the hands off those who’d touched Kíli. Ridiculous, perhaps hedging on _insane_ , frankly, but Fíli couldn’t control where his jealousy brought him any more than he could control the enduring intensity of his hunger for Kíli. Kíli hadn’t even had to confirm or deny if he was sleeping with anyone else, despite what his phrasing implied, and Fíli was shifted greener than the Hulk.

“Perfect.” Fíli said, every intonation a fucking lie.

Any blossoming spark of hope Fíli might have had that things would get easier was extinguished when Kíli kicked Daisy into a canter, laying more than physical distance between them.


	23. Chapter 23

_Morning softened across the sky, the world dim and nebulous around them where they sat against their tree in the glade close to the overlook. Fíli hadn’t wanted to get out of bed but Kíli was persuasive, barged into Fíli’s room at ten-minutes-to-dawn, sweetly rumpled in his pajamas with bird’s nest hair and sleepy eyes. Fíli had never learned how to say no to Kíli when Kíli looked so mild._

_Kíli was piled sideways in Fíli’s lap, bum on the ground between Fíli’s legs, Kíli’s own hooked over Fíli’s thigh. Fíli was leaned back against the bark while Kíli curled under Fíli’s chin, nuzzled there like a baby animal. To pass the time, Kíli traced patterns into one of Fíli’s palms, massaged and fiddled with Fíli’s fingers while Fíli kept his other hand secured on Kíli’s shoulder._

_It was unusual that Kíli hadn’t said a word since they’d settled. In fact, thinking back, Fíli couldn’t remember Kíli having actually said a word at all that morning. He’d summoned Fíli with a shake and a tilt of his head. That wouldn’t nag Fíli as much as it did if it weren’t for the air of nervousness hovering around Kíli, which was even more unusual than his mutism – at least that Kíli had kept whatever was bothering him in so long instead of purging it as soon as it struck as he normally did._

_For his part, Fíli remained quiet, relaxed his head back against the tree and melted into a light doze. The day before had been his 16 th birthday, an event weird and wonderful by turns. Wonderful because it was a _birthday _which had meant a party which Fíli had had. All his and Kíli’s friends had been in attendance, as well as some of Fíli’s older friends and family, like Bofur and Nori. The adults had milled about – Fíli and Kíli’s parents and a handful of their circle – and had kept a hawkeye on the alcohol although their presence alone had heavily dissuaded any anarchists from stealing from the adults’ supply._

 _Besides, those who’d really wanted to bother had smuggled in their own and had been surreptitiously taking swigs from their assembly of contraband whenever they’d gone inside. Nori, though in with the adults at thirty-six, was Fíli’s favorite uncle and had established anew his position at the top of the family pyramid. Throughout the afternoon, Nori had ‘forgotten’ his glass of whiskey (diluted with what must’ve been a_ dropper _of cola) in a multitude of places for Fíli to find and indulge from. Fíli, responsibly, only partook thrice, the burn of the whiskey a taste he hadn’t acquired quite yet, but he was grateful for Nori’s thoughtfulness._

_Similarly, Bofur had dragged Fíli away from the crowd in the early evening, just before the bonfire, to offer Fíli a shot straight from the bottle of tequila Bofur and his girlfriend, Beth, had brought with them. The first shot, Fíli had spat out on instinct, his body immediately rejected the foul taste as poison. The second, Bofur – with tears in his eyes, cackling from his diaphragm – had suggested Fíli hold his nose and swallow. Tequila, in Fíli’s opinion, was disgusting, but he’d powered through the evening before since Bofur, a cool twenty-five, was interesting and fun and if he thought tequila was good, Fíli had been willing to try._

_A pleasant flush had loosened Fíli up shortly thereafter, the buzz low and enjoyable. He’d rejoined his friends feeling more amenable about the game of Truth or Dare they’d been harping to set up since the cake had been devoured, and had declared, as Birthday Boy, that they should play once the bonfire had been lit._

_Which had been when the weird had factored in—_

_“Did you like it?” Kíli’s voice snipped through Fíli’s reverie. He sounded his usual level of curious, yet it was tinged somehow, his pitch arcing as he spoke from sure to less sure to fractured punctuation. The last could have been typical teenage-boy voice, broken whenever something important needed to be said, but Fíli felt certain there was more to it. If only he could parse out what Kíli was referring to._

_“Hm?”_

_“Kissing Maliandre.” Kíli clarified, doubly concentrated on following the lines in Fíli’s palm with both thumbs. “Was it nice?”_

_“Oh.” Fíli said, shrugged shyly and glanced up into the leaves as he arranged a most comprehensive answer, “It was alright, I s’pose.”_

_Kíli went rigid all over, stopped his ministrations on Fíli’s hand, and turned his head to look up at Fíli. The angle was awkward, likely presenting Kíli a view up Fíli’s nose but Kíli’s eyes drilled into him and Fíli could practically hear the million-and-two questions flooding Kíli’s mind at once upon Fíli’s response._

_Until the party, neither Fíli nor Kíli had been kissed. Then, quite suddenly - and perhaps unfortunately - Fíli’s line had spiked up on the Y Axis while Kíli’s remained stagnant on the chart of Life, putting Fíli ahead in terms of experience. No wonder Kíli was curious; it was an embarrassing subject to bring up with their friends who were more interested in flaunting their own advancements toward their sexual awakening than providing insight. There were notably few other experiences apart from Fíli’s and what had been shared so far had sounded rather outlandish, mainly Falin’s proclaimed foray into seducing their maths teacher._

_Fíli recognized a yarn when he heard one and Falin was probably the poorest liar of them all._

_Of Kíli’s queries, he started with, “Just alright?” his brows drawn, shifting his whole expression into something slightly severe looking. “She seemed pretty chuffed about it.”_

_“I guess so.” Fíli shrugged again._

_Abruptly, Kíli’s limbs flailed and he struggled upright, turning in the cradle of Fíli’s lap to stare openly, his face a mixture of amusement, triumph, and surprise._

_““You hated it!” He declared, hands smacking down on Fíli’s thighs and staying there. He leaned into Fíli’s space, reading whatever Fíli’s features told him and his smile broadened. “You_ really _hated it.”_

_Fíli blushed and ducked his head. “No.” He insisted, “It just—it wasn’t … what I expected?”_

_Truthfully, Fíli had been putting off his first kiss with Maliandre despite her egging. For the two weeks they’d been together as_ more than classmates _, Fíli had interrupted her every attempt to smash their mouths together. And smash she had done the night before, Fíli cringed. His reluctance didn’t come from a lack of readiness; Fíli had very much wanted to kiss someone._ _However, each time he’d daydreamed about kissing Maliandre, it had never felt_ right _. The images had never sparked a kaleidoscope of butterflies to flutter in his belly, they had never made his heart pound, or his breath catch. She was pretty, a glossy brunette with freckles and fawnlike cinnamon eyes; big, balm-tinted pink lips perfect for kissing. Every boy in their year wanted to date her but she’d chosen Fíli and Fíli had said ‘yes’._

_That stupid game of Truth or Dare had culminated in their kiss, everyone chanting and cheering in a circle around them by the bonfire. The buzz of the alcohol had still simmered in Fíli’s bloodstream, mellowing his inhibitions and painting the idea of finally planting one on Maliandre in front of all their friends an easy one. It had been sticky from her lipgloss and wet from her tongue, kind of dog-slobbery, and it hadn’t been pleasant whatsoever. She’d used her teeth and they’d bumped noses and Fíli hadn’t been comfortable though he’d wanted to take charge, at least to hold her head still while she tried to eat him alive._

_Frankly, it’d been gross, and Fíli wasn’t impressed in the least with kissing. He’d be fine never doing it again if that was what it was all about._

_“It looked messy,” Kíli agreed, thumbnail between his teeth as he contemplated._

_Fíli’s mouth twitched into a flat grin, head still back against the tree where he’d left it throughout their exchange, and he watched Kíli down his nose through tired, lidded eyes._

_“It was.” Fíli confirmed. “Sort of like getting sneezed on by a horse.”_

_Kíli’s face wrung into disgust, “Ew.”_

_“Yeah.” Adjusting, Fíli dragged Kíli down into his chest, arms belting around Kíli’s waist after Kíli plopped down into his original position. “Maybe I’m just not made for kissing?” Fíli pondered aloud._

_“Maybe you’re not made for kissing_ her _.” Kíli emended, “She’s too bossy.”_

_Fíli arched an eyebrow at the branch in his line of vision, smirked, “So who am I made to kiss, hm?”_

_A drawn silence followed as Kíli very deeply thought about his answer. In that time, Fíli almost dropped into another doze, feeling content in their glade, at the foot of their tree, the woods slowly coming awake around them as the sun rose higher. Kíli was warm, the perfect weight against his front, his points and curves fitted into Fíli's like a puzzle piece._

_“Me.” Kíli said awhile later, so long that Fíli had almost forgotten what they’d been discussing._

_When he did remember, he jolted, jostling Kíli who glanced up from under his lashes. He didn’t seem embarrassed or insecure about what he’d said, merely bashful as any inexperienced teenager would be._

_Fíli wouldn’t lie to himself and say he hadn’t thought about what it might be like to experiment with Kíli since Maliandre’s slippery kiss the night before._ _He'd spent the remainder of his party considering_ everyone’s _mouth. Admittedly, however, Fíli’s curiosity had brought him back to Kíli more than anyone else. Far more. He'd dismissed it as a blend of trust and comfort because why else would he have been as captivated by Kíli - his reckless, offbeat brother - than anyone else. Plenty of their friends were good-looking. The only reason Fíli had been able to come up with had been that,_ of course _he’d consider Kíli above the others; they shared space, time, and everything in between. They were inseparable. Fíli trusted Kíli with everything he had and knew Kíli wouldn’t judge him if he kissed terribly._

 _Still, that didn’t mean they_ should _try._

_“What do you mean ‘you’?” Fíli wanted to be absolutely sure he hadn’t misunderstood._

_“You could try kissing me. See if it’s any better.”_

_“You just want to be kissed so you’re not the only one of our friends who hasn’t done it.”_

_“Pfft, if I wanted to brag, Fee, I wouldn’t be asking my_ brother _, now would I?”_

_No, Fíli thought, Kíli wouldn’t._

_“Why, then?” Fíli asked._

_Kíli wasn’t careful with his answer, the words spilling out in a rush, “It could be good practice, just to try it and see if I’m any good. I trust you and you’d tell me if I’m rubbish at it and then I’d know, and I could work on it before someone actually_ does _want to kiss me and I muck up so bad that no one will ever want to try again!”_

_Laughter burst from Fíli before he could stop it, a rumble that started in his chest then shook his whole body. Kíli pouted in his lap, crossing his arms, and starting at his knees where they remained bent over Fíli’s thigh. He hunched slightly into himself as if to disappear from what he believed was Fíli’s outright rejection. Noticing that, Fíli rubbed up and down Kíli’s outer arm, stroked his thumb into Kíli’s side, soothing Kíli with his touch while he tried to rein his laughter in._

_“Kee,” He said once he’d gotten himself under control, “I’m not any better. Maliandre wasn’t exactly the best first example.”_

_“Well, I could be better, right?”_

_Fíli cocked his head, regarding Kíli, “I mean, I suppose.”_

_“So try!” Kíli implored._

_He didn’t really give Fíli much choice, grabbing the back of Fíli’s neck and pulling Fíli’s head down as he leaned up, their mouths meeting halfway. It didn’t occur to either that they were brothers, or that it was strange to kiss one’s sibling. More than strange,_ wrong _. Illegal, probably._

_Despite his initial force, Kíli’s mouth met Fíli’s hesitantly, a gasp of a thing brushed against Fíli’s lips in a soft caress. Their lips locked, Fíli’s moist-dry skin catching and dragging Kíli’s bottom lip when Fíli titled his head._ _There was no tongue, no dribble, no frantic, cinematic horrorshow. Just Fíli and Kíli pressed together. They parted with a dull smacking sound barely a thirty seconds later. Kíli was blushed attractively, eyes a little foggy and mouth parted and the sight sent an indiscernible quiver of heat down Fíli's spine. Fíli must have offered a similar picture for he felt as glazed as Kíli looked. His pulse was racing in his ears, heart beating hard behind his ribs, and mind dizzy._

_He could feel Kíli’s pulse throb just as hard under his palm where he had his hand in the curve of Kíli's neck._ _Fíli had no recollection of his hand moving but there it was, cupped under Kíli’s jaw, thumb pressed into the corner of Kíli’s mouth._

_“Was that better than Mali?” Kíli asked after a few seconds, eyes flitting between Fíli’s and Fíli’s mouth._

_“Yeah,” Fíli said and why did he sound like he'd run laps around the track at school?_

_“Wanna try again?”_

_Fíli swallowed thickly and nodded, “Yeah.”_

_The next Fíli knew, Kíli's slow summer smile spread across both their lips as Kíli descended again._

▪□▪

They dismounted in the glade, Fíli following Kíli’s lead and looping Bungle’s reins over a post that had been hammered into the ground for exactly that purpose. Although the horses could easily remove themselves if they so chose, they were well trained and content to stay there.

Fíli hardly noticed Kíli march through the trees toward the overlook as his gaze swiped to the tree, _their tree_ , where he’d been given Kíli’s first kiss. Everything had been so right, so easy, then. They’d spent the morning wrapped around each other until Kíli had bolted up and away, the front of his pajamas tented. It would be another year before they experimented below the belt and so, at the time, Fíli had pretended not to see and had made a performance of announcing that he'd had to go help Dís make breakfast, that Kíli could continue to hang out in their glade to avoid the chore.

They’d been innocent – _naïve_ – and happy, their love and trust immovable. Fíli's hands curled into fists at his sides, an urge - strong and fierce - coursing through him in a way he hadn't felt in ages. The numbness he'd allowed to build up around his heart cracked and crusted as he turned his head toward the direction Kíli had disappeared. It wasn't a violent urge, more a determination so deep it shook Fíli's bones. The longer the memories swarmed, the harder his resolve became. Finally, Fíli felt a shift inside of himself, past pretending he'd done what he'd done as a favor to anyone, including himself. 

The feeling was so powerful, he was convinced it couldn't have belonged entirely to him, summoned from the universe to guide him forward and aid him in the mission he assigned himself. He was _not_ going to let Kíli slip away. He was _not_ going to stand by as more time and distance corroded what was left between them, as fragile as the connection was. The words would come to him when they were needed. All that mattered was that he said them. Or so Fíli hoped. Either way, with or without forgiveness, Fíli was done running away.

The ghost of his younger self tipped his head in salute as Fíli turned to catch up to Kíli.


	24. Chapter 24

Thorin gawped at the space Kíli had vacated as if he could see the manifestation of Kíli’s past, arranged similarly but was smoother with slimmer cheeks and rounder eyes. A boy who’d never been away from his mother for longer than a night, who’d always been bursting with full, unmanaged energy. Who’d, to some degree, been rather tyrannical with his friendship until he’d met a cherub of a child with golden hair and heartwarming blue eyes.

Vaguely, Thorin recalled phoning Bilbo at Dís' behest though he couldn't have said what he'd told Bilbo, if he'd told Bilbo anything at all.

Thorin felt Dís’ presence shift from where it had been hovering around him to elsewhere in the kitchen. He heard the tap run, the hollow, cupping sound of water filling the kettle followed by the _shnick_ of the kettle as it was returned to its base and the stream abruptly ceasing in the sink. Dís’ form was an echo through the projection who watched Thorin from Kíli’s adolescent face. The know-it-all smirk that slowly leaked across its mouth flicked Thorin’s mind like a spinning top, careening him into a whirl of revelations fiendishly repeated on a loop.

Grandad’s toadlike register broke Thorin’s reality again, dropping the bomb about his grandsons' – great-grandsons? – about the depth of Fíli and Kíli's relationship. It was muffled by Kíli’s announcement that he and Fíli were going – _alone_ – for a ride – _just the two of them_ – “ _Jumped right into playing with each other’s willies!_ ” Grandad crowed – oh Christ in Heaven – “ _You gotta romance, **wooooo**_ ”. Dís’ excitement chipped in, trill behind Thorin’s twitching eye, “ _Kíli, that’s wonderful!_ ” proceeded by Kíli’s apprehensive, “ _We’re going. Together._ ”

Thorin blanched, the hallucinations folding over each other, and he jerked upright in his seat.

Dís openly stared at him, curious, and pulled her lips between her teeth before releasing them to comment, "Thorin, you've been catatonic for forty-five minutes, what the hell is going on with you?"

Just as Thorin was about to reply to Dís, who had, by then, resituated herself against the counter and was gazing at Thorin like he was some fundamental theory of the universe that needed studying, Vóli's beast of a body came ambling in and dissolved the insanity. 

Both Thorin and Dís observed – Thorin with wide, panicked eyes and Dís with an unreadable expression – as Vóli, clearly still slogging through the haze of flu medication, opened the fridge and reached in for the orange juice. Vóli then uncapped the carton, tipped his head back and proceeded to drink greedily, the sound of his swallowing resonating through the otherwise silent room.

Vóli was sweaty and grey and stale-smelling, his gingery-blond hair impossibly tangled, and his face marred by pillow creases though he did appear less afflicted. The pajamas he wore were stained under the arms and on the chest, a stripe across his hulking middle and one in a V between his shoulderblades. He didn’t notice his audience, drank deeply until the carton was drained, and then pulled the carton away from his mouth with a satisfied sigh.

Thorin looked at Dís who looked at Vóli and then back at Thorin who looked at Vóli who looked at neither of them.

Without a word, Vóli deposited the empty carton in the recycle bin beside the fridge and ambled back out of the kitchen to return to bed in Thorin’s old room. His departure was postscripted by the click of the rolled-boiled kettle.

Dís shuffled about, poured the boiled water into the cup she’d set beside the kettle before she dropped in a teabag she'd had ready. The scent of chamomile and whiskey rose with the steam and Thorin belatedly realized that his cup had been removed from his hands at some point and that it was the same that Dís was refilling at the counter. Beside the kettle was the open bottle of whiskey which Dís swiftly closed and put away in the left, bottom cupboard of the hutch.

“They’re going to talk.” Thorin croaked, sounding as though he hadn’t spoken for a millennium.

Dís, a meerkat peeping from behind the island after she deposited the whiskey, asked, “Who is?”

Fingers gripped white in the arms of the chair he occupied, Thorin bullied his self-control. He was better than that! Not some maiden aunt who clutched her pearls at the mention of _her little babies experimenting with sex_ – they’d been too young! Where had their _parents been_!?

“Where were you!?” Thorin demanded, outraged, catching himself in a half-risen angle off the armchair. He blinked, whacked his self-control over the head and cleared his throat.

“I beg your pardon?” Dís said, alarmed, frozen midstride as she’d been on her way to deliver Thorin’s refreshed cup of tea.

“Nothing,” Thorin flapped a hand, “Never mind. Sorry.” He resettled in the chair and accepted the cup when Dís offered it to him, ignoring the deepset look of concern in the corners of her eyes and where her mouth pulled down at the sides.

Dís sunk into the other armchair, one leg tucked under her, and peered at Thorin suspiciously, “What was that about talking?”

“The boys,” He gasped through a chokehold of panic as it rushed back in, “They’re going to talk.”

Although Thorin suspected his reasons to discourage that from happening were very different than Dís’, his declaration had the desired effect. Dís jackknifed up, popeyed, back rigid and face ashen. She whipped her head at Thorin as if he had some kind of solution which, as much as he wanted to have one, he didn’t.

“Do you really think Vóli will come up?” She clasped the inside of Thorin’s elbow in desperation, nails digging through his sweater and long-sleeved shirt and pinching the skin underneath.

Thorin tried his best to look comforting - and failed miserably - and placed his teacup on the flat top of the woodstove, leaned toward Dís to say, “I don’t—”

**_BANG!_ **

“What the fuck!?”

Thorin and Dís shot out of their seats and charged down the hall, Thorin's worries dispersing at the crack of gunfire. The dogs alternated between barking aggressively and howling the Grenadiers, jumping at the door, and barrelling about, rallied for attack. Vóli tripped into the hallway upstairs, heavy steps like thunder which shook the house as he ran to the banister, calling down in a taut rasp, “Out front!”

Together, Thorin and Dís shoved their feet into their boots, Dís pulling on a pair of mittens out of habit, and flung the door open, the dogs storming out to vanquish the enemy. It didn’t surprise Thorin that Vóli didn’t harry after them when his eyes landed on the cause of the raucous. Not much farther than the end of the steps, Grandad stood, in his slippers, with his old hunting rifle relaxed on one shoulder, a smarmy, toothless smile tipped to the sky. The tendrils of smoke were clung above Grandad before curling away in the breeze. 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing!?” Dís yelled, stomping up to him and grabbing the rifle by the lower part of the barrel, easily removing it from Grandad’s possession, much to Grandad’s chagrin.

“Oi!”

“No!” Dís warned, slapped him away when he reached for it, “I’m hiding this and you’re never getting it back! What were you _thinking_!?”

From up the hill, Thorin could hear the horses. When he moved across the lawn to the edge of the house to get a look, he saw Bifur and Nori hurrying into the stables to attempt to calm them but there were more than two horses, and they would need help. Dís seemed to read Thorin’s mind because she pressed the rifle into his chest as she jogged past, shrieking behind her, “Get the fucker inside!”

“What was all that about?” Thorin asked, tone as intimidating as the dark fury in his eyes. He returned to Grandad who blinked up at him with the innocence of a man whose hand was still in the safe.

“You weren’t being any help.” Grandad said flippantly.

“What does that mean!?”

Grandad swung a penetrating gaze and pinned Thorin with it, “It means they need to talk, and they're stupid. So, I gave them no choice.” And then, scanning Thorin accusingly from toe to top, "Not that you care."

If he were anyone else and this were any other situation, Thorin would have easily believed Grandad had shot, killed and buried his great-great?-grandsons?-nephews? in the span of ten minutes as the ominous asperity to Grandad's tone suggested. However, given that it was _Grandad_ and he made about as much sense as an art film, Thorin suspected Grandad’s actions had little to do with rational thinking, never mind _murder_. Thorin could not for the life of him unravel the nonsense Grandad had presented and, honestly, he didn’t feel inclined to bother.

Disturbed, voice a smidge rattled, Thorin squinted at Grandad and decided, “There is something profoundly wrong with you.”

Grandad looked positively gleeful, casting his hideous grin up at Thorin, “What are you going to do about it?”


	25. Chapter 25

Fíli emerged from the trees into the narrow clearing to find Kíli already sat on a fat log, laid on its side and carved into a bench with enough room for two. Kíli’s legs were stretched in front of him, his gaze to a horizon of dense, grey-white clouds and diluted sunlight. Beyond the foot of the cliff, the herd grazed, black and white blots in clusters across the valley. It was lovely and quiet, and Fíli was struck with another dull pang of nostalgia as he watched Kíli shift from side to side to get comfortable.

The seat was probably hard and cold and neither had had the forethought to bring a blanket. In Fíli’s defense, he’d never seen the bench before and had assumed they’d sort of just … stand. The overlook wasn’t somewhere they had regularly visited when Fíli had lived there and when they had, there hadn't been conventional seating. Besides, closest they'd ever normally wanted to go had been their glen and, in those days, they’d been outfitted in cumbersome, snowproof gear to keep them warm and dry so the whole forest floor had been good for planting their rearends.

Another memory flashed through Fíli’s mind of two boys clambering about in skisuits; clumps of snow stuck to woolly mittens, cheeks frostbitten red and smiles more blinding than the sun off fields of new snow. 

Fíli glanced back in the direction of the glen, remembered his conviction, that he’d given himself and this moment a purpose that was worth the possible backhand of rejection he could receive. Possibly literally. When he returned his attention to Kíli he saw that Kíli had twisted at the waist and was blatantly scrutinizing him. His prominent brows were furrowed, and his mouth was temperately pursed, smoky brown eyes drilling through Fíli’s sockets when their gazes caught. 

_Now or never_ , Fíli decided, anxiety buzzing under his skin like a low electrical current. Fíli took a gathering breath, Kíli’s brows drew further inward; Fíli stuffed his hands in his pockets then pulled them out again and wrung them in front of himself, face doing an assortment of aerobics as he tried to piece it into something earnest and sincere. Kíli tilted his head to the side, similar to Gilly when his humans were being odd, and proceeded to part his lips, likely to ask a question.

Fíli immediately interrupted the action by blurting, “I’m sorry.”

Kíli rippled before he went still, eyes big and chin dropped. He pushed himself to his feet, stumbled as he turned himself fully forward to face Fíli, and choked on something that could’ve been a laugh or a growl or simply air. Kíli looked so stunned, Fíli didn’t know what to do other than to plough on.

Hesitantly, Fíli stepped closer – left, pause, right, pause - his hands doing half the talking as he gestured erratically, nerves revving while his apology stammered out of him, “I was a fucking prick. Still might be but I want to be better and I— _shit_ , _Kíli_ , I regret it every. single. day. There isn’t a second that I don’t think about it, about _you_ but I know—” Fíli cleared his throat as tightened, his sinuses throbbed and vision blurred. He hadn’t expected to feel so much all at once. Gaspy, he said, “I am so, so sorry.”

Fíli was pleading, watery, broken. With every word, his demeanor crumbled until he was shriveled a hair’s breadth from Kíli, staring up through tears he couldn’t blink away. Kíli somehow looked as if he’d gone to Hell and back in the fraction of a minute it took Fíli to purge his sorriness all over the ground between them, into the chasm that had been wedged open by Fíli’s mistakes.

“I don’t—you don’t have to forgive me.” Fíli rushed, needed to reassure Kíli that whatever he felt about Fíli’s apology was okay, Fíli could live with it – he couldn’t live another day, however, without giving Kíli everything he had left. “Jesus, Kíli, I’ve missed you. I’ve missed _home_.” He dragged his fingers roughly through his hair, the same way Dís did when she was at her wit’s end, because Fíli was, in a way. At the precipice of judgement, to be accepted or denied.

“What I did,” Fíli persevered, arms dropped and loose at his sides, “I was wrong, so wrong, and I wish I could take it back,” His voice thickened, wetted, and he had to sniff and swallow to carry on, “If I could do everything over again, I swear to God, I never would’ve left you.”

“It was pretty ruthless, yeah.” Kíli’s voice was just as thick, viscous, and snotty, how a voice got when someone was on the brink of emotional collapse. “Really fucked me up.” He laughed and was grinning but it wasn't heartfelt, a tick to lift the gravity of the situation.

Fíli bit back a whimper and shook his head, squeezed his eyes shut, nose to the ground, chest and shoulders heaving in tandem with his lungs from the effort of maintaining his frayed composure. The air was still and frigid, hung in the thin space that divided them like a bulwark. Fíli felt so fucking alone, so pitiful and unwanted and _he’d made that happen_. A wave of fear surged and crashed, wresting him under, and he had no idea how to survive it.

He barely had the strength left to choke out, “ _Please_ ,” about to drop to his knees and _grovel_ – exactly what he promised himself he _wouldn’t_ do – when he was suddenly enveloped in solid, unyielding heat.

The sensation of Kíli surrounding him without an undercurrent of violence for the first time in five years made Fíli’s knees weak and he buckled into the embrace. His arms lifted as if moving through molasses and banded around Kíli’s middle. They squeezed each other, tucked their faces into each other’s necks, forms slotting together in a manner that felt predesigned and perfect. They were made to be two wholes of a bigger whole; how Fíli had been able to stomp that truth to the bottommost part of himself, he had no idea then that he was clung to his brother.

“I missed you,” Kíli’s confession was muffled by Fíli’s coat but Fíli nonetheless heard it. Kíli sniffed and straightened, leaned back some inches to look Fíli in the eye when he said, “I hated you for so long, Fee, I—I don’t know how to do anything else.” At Fíli’s sorrowful resignation, Kíli quickly added, “But I really want to try.”

Fíli couldn’t help it, he laughed. Not a wild, free thing, no; a slick, muddy _ah-ha_ that was more breath punched out of him at Kíli’s claim than laughter. A weight stayed rested in Fíli’s heart, but it no longer felt impossible to overcome. There was hope.

“You've no idea—” Fíli didn't know how to finish; there was so much spinning in his head, too many sentiments and admissions. Instead, he patted Kíli’s cheeks, his neck, grabbed his shoulders and tugged Kíli into another hug before Kíli changed his mind, suppressing the demented smile twinging the corners of his mouth.

Outside of his family, Fíli wasn’t tactile, was touch-starved and wanting and needed the physical contact as proof that the moment was real, that Kíli was real and had said what he’d said and Fíli wasn’t going to wake up in his empty flat in the city, it having all been a dream. He'd been wanting for hands to hold and hugs to give, pats on the shoulder or fond squeezes to the knee. Anything. 

"I'm here, Fee." Kíli whispered, holding the back of Fíli's head as gentle as a babe's, as if he _knew_ somehow what Fíli had been lacking in his life in the city and had graciously put aside the burden between them to show Fíli that affection still existed in the world and he was allowed to receive it. A small, niggling voice in the back of Fíli's head taunted that Kíli was acting out of pity. He kicked it in its teeth. 

After several more seconds of clutching one another, Kíli disentangled them with a clap to Fíli's upper arms before he scratched the back of his neck bashfully. “Want a beer?” He asked.

Their faces were blotchy and their eyelashes starred, noses stuffed but they were _there_ , _together_ , and so Fíli said, “Sure.” because he figured they should celebrate, though he didn’t want to come right out and say it. Fíli wasn’t willing to lose what delicate ground he might’ve just gained and jumping in a saluting something as a surety when it wasn't might have made a bitter impression. Of course, that didn't make him any less optimistic when he was forced against Kíli when they sat down. Despite the ample length of the log itself, the bench was snug, and Fíli found himself unintentionally pressed against Kíli from shoulder to thigh. He resisted leaning further into Kíli’s warmth, grateful for what he’d already received.

Still, Kíli’s warmth was welcome since, as soon as Fíli’s rear met the stark cold of the seat, a shiver rattled up his spine and trembled out his legs and arms.

“Here.”

Fíli accepted the bottle Kíli produced from one of his coat pockets; twisted off the cap and tipped the top at Kíli in thanks, offering a temperate smile in exchange for a wink from Kíli. Habit, Fíli knew, the action having little to do with suddenly being entirely at ease in Fíli’s presence. Kíli conjured another bottle from the opposite pocket, uncapped it with a flick and immediately brought the mouth to his lips and drank. Following Kíli's lead, Fíli put the cap in his pocket and took a sip. 

Just as they were almost settled in comfortable silence, content to listen to the smattering of moos that rose from the valley, a gunshot cracked through the air. They startled as one, jerking upright and then to their feet. Kíli moved to the edge of the cliff and survey the herd, which was in a state of panic, trampling back toward the shelter of the byres. Instantly, Kíli was on his phone, ringing whoever had to be alerted about the cows – or so Fíli inferred from the side of the conversation he could hear.

As Kíli spoke into his phone, Fíli was struck with a realization.

“Wait here,” Fíli said, uncertain if he was heard as Kíli had his back to him but Fíli'd been raised to be polite and to at least offer some signal that he wouldn’t be where he'd been for an indeterminate amount of time.

Fíli raced through the brush and darted into the glen to find exactly what he’d worried would happen had happened. Crunches and snaps alerted him that Kíli was close behind, panting from exertion and phone off and clenched in his hand. Kíli skidded to a stop beside Fíli and stared ahead, as keyed up and ready to go as Fíli was.

“Kíli.” Fíli started, cleared his throat, then tentatively proceeded, “It seems we’ve encountered a slight problem.”

Kíli threw his arms up and cried to the vacant patch of forest that should've been quite occupied, "Oh, _fuck_ _me_."

The ponies were missing.


	26. Chapter 26

That was not how Kíli usually spent his workday hours. Indeed, he usually spent his workday hours giving sleigh rides to hyper children; helping his uncle, Frerin, with jobs that required extra hands; putting in hours down at the byres. Kíli wasn’t fully employed anywhere, a bit of a drifter, but he earned fair money doing things his way. Part-time here, on-call there, a slew of well-paid favors sprinkled in to keep his schedule interesting. If he committed himself entirely, it lasted months, haply, instead of the typical _years_ most devoted themselves to.

While Kíli’s workstyle everchanged, it was nevertheless _manageable_. A simple routine from Monday to Friday, the destinations different from one week to the next but the work always rewarding. He’d formulated a plan to which he’d adhered since he'd entered the laborforce; kept his work strictly within the hours he assigned himself per week, made sure to _make_ those hours per week, and, most importantly, not to overdo it.

And yet, after years of discipline, there Kíli was, overdone.

Somehow, that week had run away from him and, although things had been looking up – especially in regards to his extraordinarily returned brother – the excitement began to take its toll. Kíli wasn’t accustomed to so many matters mattering in one day (he had enough complications inside his head, thank you, he didn’t need any External Conflict to liven things up), and he had to admit that he was _whelmed_ , at least moderately. 

First, Glóin and Greenleaf and their exhausting affair, and then Fíli and All of That and a Bag of Crisps which Kíli didn’t have the bandwidth to unpack, and then, naturally, because his Wednesday hadn’t been dramatic enough, _the bloody horses were missing_.

Logic told him that Daisy and Bungle had likely bolted back to the stables; they were exceptionally smart, familiar with the trails, and could, if they’d fled in any other direction, navigate their way back inasmuch as they hadn’t galloped too far out of homing territory. Panic, on the other hand, told Kíli that they were long gone, and he was going to be crucified by his mother the instant she realized two of her four-legged children had disappeared.

Kíli reminded himself that the horses would be fine; it wasn’t as if there were wolves or bears or, what? _trolls_?, lurking about. The woods were clear of apex threats aside from a couple of nearby setts and fox dens. And what barmy fox would attempt to fell an enormous, 450-kilogram Dales?

Beside him, Fíli didn’t look as confident about the horses’ whereabouts as Kíli was starting to be. Granted, it had been awhile since Fíli had been around and he didn’t know Daisy and Bungle from anonymous horses, so Kíli couldn’t fault Fíli his worry. What came as a surprise to Kíli was for Fíli’s ignorance of Erebor’s current affairs to sting as much as it did. Because Fíli _should have known_ Daisy and Bungle, should have been able to _trust_ that they were fine apart from possibly still being scared out of their minds.

“I’ll call mum, see if they made their way back to the stables.” Kíli announced, a handout of comfort. Fíli always dealt better when there was a plan of action. At Fíli’s nod, Kíli pulled his phone out of his pocket again and rang his mother's mobile.

No answer.

Kíli tried Thorin next, and then Bofur, but no one picked up.

“Shit,” Kíli huffed, shoving his phone back into his pocket before digging his gloves out to redress his hands. The air was getting nippier the longer they were stood outside, and he wasn’t keen on losing a finger while he waited for someone to phone back. “My guess is they’re busy in the stables.”

“Makes sense.” Fíli agreed. If the gunshot had been loud enough to spook Daisy and Bungle _and_ the herd, it had certainly been loud enough to scare whoever remained in their stalls.

Kíli watched Fíli school his expression into something less wary and more purposive before he stepped further into the glen to explore the damage Daisy and Bungle had left behind. The posts their reins had been looped through were uprooted and discarded on their sides behind the line of trees leading toward the trail. Deep, skidded hoofprints in the duff and snow made an obvious path out of the glen and in the direction that suggested to Kíli that Daisy and Bungle were either galloping farmward or had already arrived. Though, by the lack of incoming phonecalls, Kíli didn’t believe they’d made it quite yet (should that be where their tracks in fact led).

“Should we…?” Fíli jerked his chin at the hoofprints, trailing off as if uncertain that any sort of initiative on his part would be welcome.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

Fíli wavered, shot a glance toward the overlook. It took a second for Kíli to catch on and when he did, he said, “Nah, leave ‘em, I’ll grab them later when we know the horses are alright.”

Litter in the form of their half-consumed beers was the least of Kíli’s concerns. The environment would survive.

They tramped through the woods at an even pace, shoulders in line but bodies distanced by a respectable two feet which Kíli appreciated, reeling as he was by Fíli’s impromptu apology. He’d meant what he’d said, about harboring residual hate toward Fíli; more so about wanting to try and mend things. It was strange to think that just yesterday, Kíli never, in his wildest dreams, would have been able to imagine Fíli desiring the same.

Fíli was (or had been, Kíli supposed, not entirely sure _who_ Fíli was anymore) many things but he was especially stubborn in his self-flagellation. Kíli would've had to have been lobotomized not to recognize how Fíli was changed by the guilt he’d confessed to carrying. Fíli’s _amende honorable_ had shed light upon a reality previously mired by the shadow of Kíli’s spite and sadness. 

There remained within Kíli’s heart and mind and _soul_ a thousand emotional knots to untangle, too much for him to succeed, a) in the presence of the man who’d knotted them in the first place and, b) in the inexcusably brief amount of time Kíli had had to the _words_ , never mind the _sentiment_. He would take what time he could later to lock himself in his room and evaluate but, until the more pressing issue of Daisy and Bungle was resolved, he had to push aside what resentment still rolled in his stomach and put his big boy pants on.

It was a rescue mission, after all.

“Did you mean it?”

Of course, Kíli wasn’t exactly famous for his patience or following his own advice.

Fíli didn’t need further explanation to understand what Kíli was referring to, thankfully, “All of it.” He paused, the way he chewed his lip and penetrated the ground with his gaze an indication to Kíli that Fíli had more to say. After he’d apparently organized his thoughts, Fíli said upon a world-weary sigh, “I’d been hearing things ‘round town. They got … muddy. In my head, I mean.”

Kíli faltered in his steps. That was news; he’d never heard anything about anything around the village aside from the usual harmless gossip. And, obviously, the assumptions ensuing Fíli’s abrupt departure, though the family had done their best to keep the vultures at bay by telling everyone that Fíli had merely accepted a job in the city. Kíli had wondered if Vóli and Dís actually believed that that was all there was to it and he still wasn’t clear if that was the case.

“Whad’you mean?” Kíli pressed, eyeing Fíli narrowly, forehead creased, and mouth turned down as his curiosity piqued.

Fíli hunched his back and tucked his ears into his shoulders, making himself look as small as possible for a man with meat on his bones. It didn’t suit him, Kíli thought; Fíli had been quiet and unobtrusive, yes - the perfect example of an introvert - but he’d also been sure of himself and his motivations, someone who stood proudly, ready to tackle whatever came his way, good or bad. That Fíli, the one scuffing his boots as if the weight of his being became too heavy to carry, caused a sprig of concern to poke at Kíli’s sentimentality.

“I—” Fíli canvased the middle distance, looking everywhere but at Kíli, clicked his tongue, “Three times it happened. Once was,” He made a noncommittal noise, “You know? Whatever, didn’t think too much of it. But three? And it wasn’t all one person either, Kíli.” Fíli flickered and held his gaze to Kíli’s as he said the last, beseeching.

“ _What_ were they saying?” Kíli rolled his eyes and threw up his hands in frustration, demanding the point.

“About us.” The truth seemed to taste sour on Fíli’s tongue because his face pinched. They both stopped moving and Fíli turned toward Kíli, freeing one hand from his pockets to scrub over his face, the leather of his glove grating through his scruff. “Kee,” He drew a quick breath, clamped his mouth shut then tried again, “Kíli, they said it was going to compromise how you’d be received at Bombadil's.” 

Kíli hadn't thought of Tom Bombadil in ages. While he hadn't been at the job long, a week or less before Bombadil had had to let him go, the very _notion_ that it could have been the result of anything short of financial hardship on Bombadil's part punched a laugh from Kíli’s gut.

“Are you serious?!” He looked around, scoping the area for a camouflaged television crew, stifling laughter as they captured the gargantuan pile of horseshit Fíli spewed but, no, he and Fíli were alone. “You think _we're_ the reason I didn't stay on?”

“It’s a small village. Traditional to a fault. Almost _everyone_ around here is scandalized by the idea of a _blowjob_! They accept some things, Kee,” That time, Fíli didn’t amend himself, distracted as he flared awake with a passion Kíli had only briefly witnessed when they'd fought in the barn. There was no doubt that what Fíli said he believed with the conviction of a prophet who'd met the big man Himself, “I'm not saying they don't, but certain taboos are generally accepted to be twisted and wro—.”

“How is any of what we did taboo!?” Kíli's brain threatened to shut down, overwhelmed by the virus of Fíli's absurd reasoning. 

"Nobody _cares_! We've been thought of that way well before our parents linked up." Fíli argued, red, features etched in aggravation, hands twitching as though he held himself back from pulling his hair. "I couldn’t—I don’t know what I would’ve done if I’d been responsible for hurting your chances at—”

“At? At what? A job I didn't get anyway? One of _many_ , mind. My employment wasn’t nearly as important as what we had and you went and made the decision to fuck off based on _village tripe_!?” Kíli seethed, prowled his way into Fíli’s space until their noses were less than an inch apart. He felt a chemical reaction explode behind his breastbone, diethyl zinc meets air, the byproduct of which was an anger so roasting, Kíli thought to fear for the fate of his internal organs. He couldn’t ascertain who, specifically, that anger was directed toward, but he knew Fíli had earned himself a healthy chunk of it. “And you didn’t bother to _tell me_!?”

Fíli looked conflicted, the spitfire fervor he'd shown evaporating in the heat of Kíli's rage, and he curled into himself like a dying leaf.

“No!” Kíli barked, jabbing a finger under Fíli’s nose.

Fíli winced.

“No, you absolutely do not get to make that face!”

“What face?” Fíli questioned softly.

“Or that voice! You’re not this pathetic, Fíli Durin, grow a pair!”

Fíli took a step back, self-preservation probably kicking in as he certainly held the impression of a person who smelt the violence at the edges of Kíli's reserve. Kíli stomped ahead, then twisted back, shot his hands about but had no words to emphasize with the gesture as they were all stuck in the maelstrom of his anger. He turned back, step, step, turned again, “RRAH!”

“Kíli, I—” Fíli started, interrupted before Kíli could learn what ridiculous reason Fíli had had for being such a—such a— _such a fucktossing arsehole_.

What had interrupted Fíli had been a rather quaint _ahem_ from the dignified throat of none other than Thorin’s boyfriend, Bilbo who'd masterfully snuck up behind them. Fíli and Kíli’s attention shot to Bilbo as soon as he’d made the noise, to find him hovering down the slope, on the trail, straddled on Myrtle’s back. He appeared distinctly uncomfortable in the saddle, hands, white-knuckling the reins, lifted to his chest and his back ramrod straight, every one of his muscles tense. Even his floppy cloud of sandy curls seemed deflated in his unease. 

“Are you two alright?” He inquired politely in a tone that spoke of rather being anywhere but where he was currently. “Your uncle sent me.” That, Bilbo addressed to Kíli, and then he tipped his head at Fíli and offered a fraught smile, “Good to see you.”

“Uh.” Fíli coughed, smiled weakly back, and raised his hand in greeting, “You too.”

Bilbo visibly debated something in his mind, face contorting in more ways than a circus act. “You know,” He looked at Kíli again, “Fíli’s not wrong—” Oh, marvelous, he’d heard everything, “I heard some of the things they’d said, Kíli, and it was all rather, uhm, hmm…” He pursed and pressed his lips, eyes, shaped in perpetual worry, squinched in thought and didn't widen when Bilbo settled on, “ _Unpleasant_.”

Kíli wanted to scream. Or better yet, he wanted to punch something bloody however, with Fíli’s face still looking tender and Kíli’s fist still freshly bruised, he chose the former in the hopes that it would alleviate several pascals of outrage before he spontaneously combusted.

Birds, disturbed a second time that day, were pushed into flight on the blast wave of Kíli’s bellowing scream.

Bilbo and Fíli gawped at him when he finally finished, the woods dead silent around them, Kíli’s neck and face muscles loose-feeling stressing so powerfully. Fíli ducked his head, a myriad of emotions fluttered across his face, and wandered toward Bilbo who’d done his absolute best to keep Myrtle from startling. Unlike the birds and the other horses, though, Myrtle hadn’t so much as blinked, simply snorted a put-upon horse-sigh and clopped one hoof at a time, moving her great body sideways in a manner that commanded, in no uncertain terms, that she was done with all the day’s fuss and they were going home.

“What? Never seen a man lose his mind before?” Kíli scathed, fixing his hat then treading up to Myrtle. 

“Of course I have,” Bilbo said flatly, “But you’d have to do a lot more to impress me. I live with your uncle,” Bilbo’s tone pitched low into something threatening, “And I put turnips in his stew.”


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for those who aren't sure: it was brought to my attention by the fabulous Indilwen, that i had made a mistake in my timeline in the last chapter. if you don't want to go back and read, just know that it wasn't Kee's _education_ that was at risk but his _employment_ 🙂

Bilbo Baggins was a simple man of simple pleasures who rarely left the sanctuary of his nursery for anything less than a category five storm. He employed only two cashiers who rotated on the weekends while he handled clerical matters, and perhaps a day or two during the week when he felt his time would be better spent serving flora to fauna. Though he was a member of the community, socialized the right amount and attended the necessary gatherings, it was hardly a secret that Bilbo preferred privacy and plants to people.

Many, he believed, considered him polite, gracious, and entirely respectable and he certainly couldn’t refute them for those were the qualities Bilbo admired in himself.

Regrettably, however respectable, _scandal_ was an affliction Bilbo was not immune to. He'd caught his first in his thirties after a quarrel with his cousin, Lobelia, who'd proclaimed she'd been better suited to inherit Bag End - the estate on which Bilbo had been raised. Bilbo was quite certain Lobelia had merely wanted Bag End to spite him as she'd never been favored by his parents and she, herself, made nary an effort to impress them. Entitled, bullying, infuriating, Lobelia had worn Bilbo down by use of juvenile tactics (the worst having been the flood in the west wing). There'd been so much to renovate; apart from a few rooms, the estate had fallen into disrepair in his parents' last years, too vast for either of them to manage without the staff they'd once employed. Lobelia had known Bilbo had been up to his ears in quotes and costs and edging nearer to the brink. 

Hornswoggling fussock.

Exhausted and, foremost, unable to muster the emotional investment required to contend for his birthright, Bilbo had left it to her and had never looked back.

(What annoyed him to a level of blackout rage Bilbo had never known he'd been capable of was that Lobelia had soon after abandoned Bag End to move to the city. It was merely the grace of God that had kept her from Bilbo's wrath as ownership of Bag End had been acquired by Bilbo’s favorite nephew, Frodo.)

The village of Dale – which lent its name to the county wherein it was seated – had been a marvelous place to make a home after the hell Lobelia had put Bilbo through. It was quaint and quiet, boasted a way of life that had appealed to Bilbo then and continued to appeal to him in spite of its flaws. Which led Bilbo to his second catching: On the eve of his 45th birthday, there had been a tame odium against him when he’d debuted his romantic preferences with the broody and darkly handsome Thorin Oakes on his arm. Apparently, Dale was populated by traditional folk who were tolerant to new ways of thinking so long as those ways were conducted _elsewhere_.

A pity, for Bilbo truly loved Dale, had chosen to make his home there and enjoyed the pace of a rural lifestyle. 

He had become acquainted rather quickly, after his informal coming out, to the people of delicate, outdated sensibility whose opinions were given an astounding amount of weight amongst the community. Not so common among the twenty- or thirty-somethings, no – Fíli and Kíli’s friend group had always been openminded and accepting – but the drivel of the sered and yellow had a wicked way of corrupting naïve minds. They judged coldly, wore their disgust for the _peculiar_ in the folds of their grey faces, didn’t _encourage_ cruelty yet arguably fostered it with their silence.

However Kíli had managed to remain blissfully unaware of the sway gossip had on a tired, bored country village, Bilbo would love to understand. As much as Bilbo didn’t care about his role in entertaining narrowminded bigots – and nor did Thorin, stalwart and magnificent in his reproach of the talk – it had taken its toll on two important members of the family Bilbo had been absorbed into and therefore affected him to an unignorable degree.

Fíli, Bilbo lamented, hadn’t been ignorant like Kíli and nor had he been able to shield himself as Bilbo had learned to, but Bilbo vowed to himself to mentor Fíli as best he could in the art of rebutting the damage that particular, distasteful group in Dale delighted in inflicting. That he hadn't before chewed at him; he'd had multiple opportunities. Fíli often invited Bilbo to visit him in the city. Well, Bilbo would just have to rectify that by making himself more present, he decided. Thorin might've done something himself if he'd had an inkling as to what was being said about his nephews behind their backs. Hm. Maybe selective hearing was an Oakes trait inherent in the male bloodline? 

As Bilbo considered that, he absently wondered how Thorin was getting on, if Thorin had stayed on the sofa, a sentinel watching over Grandad, where Bilbo had left him. 

When Bilbo had arrived at Erebor from the nursery, he’d been shocked to find the place in utter pandemonium. He’d been further shocked to witness Thorin dissolved into a sort of fugue state in the kitchen. There, Thorin had incoherently explained the gunshot Bilbo had heard as he’d approached the gate at the end of the drive. Daisy and Bungle had soon after returned, saddles empty. With Thorin in no position to ride out to meet his nephews, and everyone else caught up calming the remaining horses or reassuring sleigh-goers at the lake, Bilbo had volunteered to go.

A choice he regretted the longer he sat on Myrtle’s back. 

The argument he’d overheard between Fíli and Kíli hadn’t helped settle Bilbo’s nerves. Those five years ago, he’d suspected there’d been something developing between them that hadn't been entirely brotherly before the village had sunk their teeth into the first piece of gristly blather. The shopladies who had haunted the seats at the butcher's hadn't been kind with their exaggerations but it had caused Bilbo to pay more attention when he'd seen Fíli and Kíli. He'd hated himself a little for having listened to the crock Mrs. Ainsworth and Mrs. Huckabee spilt, even if they hadn't been altogether misinformed. He couldn't deny the nature of the gazes they shared, the touches that lingered, the _closeness_ which couldn't have been explained as familial tactility. 

After Fíli had accepted the job in the city, Bilbo had put the ordeal out of his mind. The gossip diverted elsewhere - some poor girl who'd been chased out by rumor and pitchfork tongues after it had been discovered she'd been pregnant by a feuding family's eldest son, ten years her senior. Fíli and Kíli's misfortune had all but been forgotten by the end of the season and had never been brought up since. To have the matter exhumed once more was alarming; to have had to bumble his way into it was even worse. 

Bilbo hadn't expected that, when he'd found Fíli and Kíli, he would not only have his former suspicions - and the suspicions of the village hens - confirmed, but that he would end up sticking his nose in where it didn't belong. Do understand, he couldn't have helped it, what with all the gossip he'd heard that had ruined the lives of others before it had ruined Fíli and Kíli's. That Kíli had acted as though it couldn't have possibly made a difference to their lives had torn something open in Bilbo and had stirred him to back Fíli's claims up. Inexcusable behavior, perhaps, but he hadn't been about to sit there and wait for them to pummel each other bloody. Again, by the looks of them. 

He wouldn't get involved anymore than he had already, he told himself. 

Of course, that resolve was dwindling the more Bilbo listened to Kíli's irate grumbling, scoffing as though he'd been offered the most outrageous excuse he'd ever heard. 

Myrtle's lazy, loping pace did nothing to soothe Bilbo's mounting frustration - which he would reiterate he would do nothing about for it wasn't his place to do so. Fíli walked on Bilbo's right, head down and silent, while Kíli tromped like a child in a tantrum at Bilbo's left. Both were clearly nursing wounds Bilbo wasn't equipped to treat. If he could, he would; he'd find a way to get the two idiots alone in an environment that facilitated positivity and healthy communication. Perhaps have them occupied with a task in order to keep their hands busy (Bilbo winced at the bruise purpling on Kíli's cheek and chin). Somewhere one couldn't possibly feel anything but warm and at ease. 

So, anywhere within a hundred yards of Grandad was right out...

Hold on, Bilbo perked up then immediately tried to tamp down his physical reaction to his genius for fear that Fíli or Kíli would notice. There _was_ somewhere Bilbo could think of that checked off every box on his list.

“You know,” Bilbo said, kept his eyes ahead, affording only a slice of his concentration to the matter at hand, “With everyone busy calming horses and visitors and," He tilted his head to the side, shook it gravely, "Each other, there’s likely no one at the barn...” He lent a bit of false reflection to his tone as if he were merely speaking aloud to himself, “Dís is understandably stressed…I feel horrible that I can’t stay to lend a hand but Daisy has Charlie and—”

“It’s fine Bilbo,” Fíli reassured, and when Bilbo glanced down he saw Fíli's don a small smile, “I’ll go down and see what needs doing.”

“So will I!” Kíli declared, competitive, from Bilbo's other side.

“No one else will be around for awhile yet.” Bilbo said dismally.

Fíli knocked the back of his hand to Bilbo’s knee, his smile firmer and more assured, “Don’t worry, I’ll get it done.”

Kíli growled over the rustle of his coat as he flailed irritably, “And so will I!”

When in doubt, Bilbo sniggered internally, draw on the power of a son's love for his mother. 

He was a genius.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much, lovelies!!!
> 
> 😊🤓👍 - well done! (thx for sharing)  
> 🤭😏😎 - sneaky Bilbo is sneaky  
> 🥰😁😌 - so sweet  
> 🤔😶😬 - excuse you, where's the next chapter?!  
> 😓🥺😢 - poor babes  
> 😠😤😑 - stupid village


End file.
